Preludes and Nocturnes – an exhibition by Laura Wilson
Viewable: Friday 6th – Thursday 26th August 2010, 5pm-12am daily
Private View: Thursday 5th August – 7.30pm-10.00pm with La Folia, a performance by Jefford Horrigan at 8pm sharp (duration 5 min) and a Video performance by Reynir Hutber at 9.30pm.
New Dalston Library, Dalston Lane
Preludes and Nocturnes, an exhibition by Laura Wilson is presented by curator Rose Lejeune as the second exhibition in the space of the New Dalston Square Library.
For this exhibition, Wilson has chosen to illuminate the building through a series of interventions that dissect its architectural facades and linear history. Common domestic light bulbs hang through the building, coming to rest at different heights they hover over and light up the concrete floor.
In the front of the space, under the lights, Wilson has used coal and concrete mixed with small amounts of florescent powder, to mark out the grey and black shadows created by the structure of the building. Wilson’s drawings of these uninterrupted shadows remind us of the building’s current empty state and of how it changes throughout the day as the sun follows its path. The florescent powder which is activated by the sun but barely visible due to the electric light of the city further alludes to the unrealised potential of the space as well as the invisible layers of its past.
Using a one-to-one scale, the floor drawings reference early masonry drawings in their scale and point to the history of the site of the library – a former cinema, theatre, and circus and more recently an illegal club, squat and derelict site of much contention. Using the history of the site as a source of inspiration, Wilson uses light and shadow to create moments of interaction with the site across time and as such renders visible its past, current situation and possible futures
Events
As part of Preludes and Nocturnes Wilson will present three events in the space developing the themes
of architecture, light and exposure.
Thursday 5th August, 8pm: Jefford Horrigan - La Folia
Compelled against better judgment or common sense, an inappropriate touch or remark or declaration is made – those moments when you just know you are going to make that same mistake again.
Simple, precise and mannered, Jefford Horrigan moves and positions his furniture and objects to create a dream like ambiguity. He has recently performed at Beaconsfield, ICA, SLG and Tate Britain.
Thursday 5th August, 9.30pm: Reynir Hutber - Video Performance.
Reynir Hutber will use the notion of the building as a space in transition to inspire a digital dissection of its architecture. His live video montage will explore the formal qualities of the building before they are obscured by its social function.
Hutber has a broad art practice that draws on performance, installation, media architecture, VJing and sculpture. He was recently awarded the Catlin Art Prize 2010. www.reynirhutber.blogspot.com
Wednesday 11th August, 7.30pm: Laura Wilson presents a Pointing’ with Catherine Croft
Wilson’s ‘Pointings’ are a series of conversations conducted with experts in their various fields whose interests enhance and expand upon elements of Wilson’s practice.
Expanding on her recent book, Concrete Architecture, Croft will discuss the resurgence of concrete in new buildings such as the library and celebrate the intrinsic qualities of concrete and how they work to create the places in which we live, work, and play. Croft is currently Director of the Twentieth Century Society and is a regular contributor to a number of architectural journals, including Building Design. (limited places, please RSPV dalstonlibrary@googlemail.com)
About Laura Wilson
Wilson brings the everyday into visibility, and makes the viewer to pay attention to things that they frequently ignore. Site-specificity and its dialogue with architecture informs her practice which explores notions of construction, demolition and the re-use of building elements both in terms of the materials that she uses and in the re- contextualisation of actions and everyday events forms a kind of cyclic archaeology.
Selected exhibitions include; Horse of a different colour, Siobhan Davies Studios, London, 2010; Field Broadcast as part of Wysing Contemporary, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, 2010; Publish & be damned @ Late at Tate, Tate Britain, 2009; Subvision Festival, Hamburg, August 2009; Brief Encounter, Wolstenholme Projects, as part of the Liverpool Biennale 2008; Scene in the Making, Nicholls & Clarke building as part of Concrete & Class, London 2008; Endgames, Truck, Canada 2007; Ename Actueel 2007: Foundation, Belgium 2007; Sixty-Seven, South London Gallery, London 2006 and Perspective 2004, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast 2004.
Dalston Library
Preludes and Nocturnes is the second exhibition in the space of the new Dalston Library before its fit-out in September 2010. The space is not accessible to the public, instead the works can be viewed by passers-by and commuters through its windows. As such, the exhibitions simultaneously animate the new space, and act as a platform for the artists work, framing and bracketing it.
Supported by Hackney Council - giving empty premises a new lease of life
A group exhibition organised by Opa Malyn vzw with work of SNP, Gert37, Mira Albrecht, Wannes Behaegel, Clemens Behr, Willem Boel, Dominiek Colpaert, Ruth Crabbe, Jesse Cremers, Pauwel De Buck, Kris Fierens, Ritsart Gobyn, Geert Koekoeckx, Warre Mulder, Pauline Niks, Tinka Pittoors, Suleika Van der Jeugdt, Samuel Vanderveken, Yasmine Willems and Laura Wilson.
