We are pleased to announce an exhibition of new sculptures and photographs
by Richard Wentworth, his 5th solo show at Lisson Gallery since 1984. Richard
Wentworth’s works, encircling the notion of objects and their use as part of our
day to day life experience, has altered the traditional definition of sculpture. By
transforming and manipulating industrial and/or found objects into works of art,
Wentworth subverts their original function and therefore challenges our
understanding of them by breaking the conventional system of classification.
These sculptural arrangements and assisted ready mades play with the
juxtaposition of objects that have nothing in common. They often incorporate a
range of materials not usually associated with art. This can be seen in the large
scale floor sculpture Spread a work made of an enormous number of second
hand plates, densely arranged with a strong sense of physicality. This piece, due
to its use of materials plates of various values and from different locations,
collected over a long period of time, is related to the intimacy of our lives. Most
probably, most of us have eaten from a plate similar to one of those exhibited.
Read moreThe Look and The Feel brings together a glass shelf with a white painted walking
stick. Again it is about perception and questions the commonplace privilege of
sight. Even more, it introduces the subtle difference between seeing, which is a
passive activity, and looking which an active one, seeking for visual interests. Two
photographic series convey Wentworth’s vision of the world and its fragility. The
viewer encounters the unexpected through the artist’s photographs which reveal
a spontaneous and surprising urban reality and have to be understood as an
independent and separate activity from the sculptures.
Making Do and Getting By investigates daily DIY activities and human
resourcefulness. It records the ingenious way we all use inappropriate materials
to do jobs and acknowledges the fact that all of us make little sculptures
everyday by washing up or packing a suitcase, ... thereby revealing the true
condition of our lives. The Occasional Geometries series is about organization,
the way streets organize themselves for instance ñ the parallels of the streets,
pavements, parked cars, ... with a constant balance between rigidity and vitality,
order and disorder.
This exhibition includes two new works which are high on the wall and very
precarious. Like all of Wentworth’s work, they are about the combination of the
desirable and the precarious, and to this extent, one can find a correlation
between this show and the vanitas paintings of the 17th century which depicted
objects that were loaded with symbolism linked to our human condition.
Richard Wentworth was awarded the Mark Rothko Memorial (1974) and the
Berlin DAAD Fellowship (1993/94). He taught at Goldsmith’s College from 1971
to 1987, worked in New York and now lives in London. His work has been
shown in various institutions such as the Serpentine Gallery, the Whitechapel
Gallery, the Hayward Gallery, London; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Institute
of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; the
Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; the Mus¿é Art Moderne de la
Ville de Paris, Paris.
