Gallery late opening and book launch for Lucy Raven's new publication 'Socorro!', 12 October

4 October 2023

Join us on 12 October in London for the late opening of 'Li Ran: Waiting for the Advent' and 'Ryan Gander: PUNTO!', and the launch of Lucy Raven's new publication, Socorro!, published by MACK, marking Frieze's West End Night.

Between 2021 and 2022, Raven created a series of more than sixty unique silver gelatin shadowgrams at an explosives range in New Mexico, often used as a test site by the US Department of Defense and private munition companies. From within a custom-built room-sized black box purpose-built on the site, Raven recorded the elemental pressures of air and the raw materials that constitute the explosive event by exposing photosensitive paper for micro-seconds. These empirical experiments resulted in the subtly inflected abstractions that are collected in this artist’s book.

The town where the explosives range is located was given its name, Socorro (meaning ‘succour’ or ‘relief’), by ailing Spanish settlers when Piro Native Americans welcomed them with water. Raven became interested in this location, which is also close to the very first sites of nuclear weapon testing, whilst filming for the second of a cinematic trilogy of latter-day Westerns, each of which investigates properties of pressure, force, and material transformation in relation to the Western United States, past and present.

A selection of Raven's shadowgrams were included in the group exhibition at Lisson Gallery London, Matter as Actor, from May to June, 2023.

Socorro! features newly commissioned essays by art historian Pamela M. Lee and David Levi Strauss, and is available in a limited edition of 500 signed copies.

Find further information via MACK.