Pavla and Lucia Sceranková: Surface Tensions

About

Pavla Scerankova’s sculptural installations and video-performances are characterised by minimalism, subtle humour and sensitive relation to their surroundings, playfully inviting the spectator to interact and explore the relationships between perception and the perceived world. Lucia Sceranková creates photographic and sculptural installations, often from her immediate surroundings, manually transforming reality into illusion and fiction.

In addition to the exhibition at Pump House Gallery a new, temporary public artwork will be sited in Battersea Park’s Pleasure Garden fountains. This kinetic sculptural installation expands and extends the exhibition into the public space of the park, drawing upon a pool of conceptual and aesthetic references including the artists’ recent research into the history of the fountains as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. Following a site visit in summer 2016, the artists were inspired by British modernist architect Edward Mills and his Abacus Screen, originally created in 1951 for the Festival’s Southbank site.

Accents of this research are picked up in the work on display at the gallery where sculptural, photographic and installation works intervene in the architecture. Tension is at the heart of the exhibition: the tension between two artists’ work that is being presented at such close quarters, the physical tension within many of the works and the tension of the artists inviting the audience to interact with certain works.

The elements of risk and tension within the exhibition create a connection through the park that invites audience members to explore the site as a whole and contemplate the concepts of the exhibition in the specific setting of the park. 

More about Pavla Sceranková: www.scerankova.wz.cz
More about Lucia Sceranková: www.luciascerankova.com

Organised by the Czech Centre London and Pump House Gallery
www.czechcentre.org.uk
www.pumphousegallery.org.uk

Curated by: Pump House Gallery and Lily Hall
Artists: Pavla Sceranková, Lucie Sceranková

Partners: Techo, Czech British Chamber of Commerce, Pilsner Urquell, the City of Prague, Czech Tourism, The Elephant Trust; the Ministry of Culture, Czech Republic; the Embassy of Slovakia in London, Drdova Gallery