JANE AND LOUISE WILSON // Studio visits on 26 April and Lecture @ HAMMER on 30 April
From MOMA, a biography:
Twins Jane and Louise Wilson were born in 1967 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. From 1986 to 1989, Jane studied art at Newcastle Polytechnic and Louise studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. For their concurrent BA degree shows, they showed identical bodies of work, and from that point on they have continued to collaborate on photographs and videos. They both attended Goldsmiths College in London, receiving MA degrees in 1992.
The twins’ early work comprises photographs and films of performances. Garage(1989–93) is a large black-and-white photograph of Jane, noose around her neck, pouring water into an aquarium and over Louise’s head. Hypnotic Suggestion(1993) features video footage of the twins under hypnosis. The Wilsons’ work took a more political turn with Stasi City (1997), a four-screen video projection filmed at the former Stasi police headquarters in East Berlin. Since this project, the Wilsons’ work has explored Modernism and its ambitions through specific historical sites. They filmed at the American military base in Greenham Common, England, for Gamma (1999). Dreamtime (2001) was filmed during a Russian rocket launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the world’s largest space-launch center. A Free and Anonymous Monument (2003) uses four video screens to address the history of Victor Pasmore’s Apollo Pavilion, an architectonic sculpture built at the center of the town of Gateshead, England, and now covered with graffiti and regarded as a symbol of the failure of Modernist urban planning. This abstract structure is juxtaposed in the film with an oil rig whose function conversely dictates its form. For a 2006 exhibition at the Lisson Gallery entitled The New Brutalists, the Wilsons created an installation comprised of videos and large-scale photographs of the decrepit sites that once served as military outposts for the German Third Reich; such employment of brutalist architecture for violent ends extends the artists’ examination of the haunting afterlife of Modernist axioms.
The Wilson sisters have had exhibitions at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva (1997), Kunsthalle Hamburg (1999), the Tate in London (2000), Kunst-Werke Berlin (2002), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England (2003), and Bergen Art Museum in Norway (2005), among other venues. In 2005, the Wilsons were invited by the Royal Opera House in London to design sets for their production of Michael Tippett’s The Knot Garden. They have also exhibited widely in international group shows, including the Carnegie International (1999), Korean Biennial (2000), Istanbul Biennial (2001), Moving Pictures at theGuggenheim Museum Bilbao (2003), Remind at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2003), and Out of Time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2006). In 1999, they were shortlisted for the Turner Prize. They live and work in London.
Sign up will be posted on Tuesday 23 April at 11 AM. Either 5, 30 minute appointments will be available, or 3, 45 minute appointments. Meetings will begin at 2PM.
Twins Jane and Louise Wilson were born in 1967 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. From 1986 to 1989, Jane studied art at Newcastle Polytechnic and Louise studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. For their concurrent BA degree shows, they showed identical bodies of work, and from that point on they have continued to collaborate on photographs and videos. They both attended Goldsmiths College in London, receiving MA degrees in 1992.
The twins’ early work comprises photographs and films of performances. Garage(1989–93) is a large black-and-white photograph of Jane, noose around her neck, pouring water into an aquarium and over Louise’s head. Hypnotic Suggestion(1993) features video footage of the twins under hypnosis. The Wilsons’ work took a more political turn with Stasi City (1997), a four-screen video projection filmed at the former Stasi police headquarters in East Berlin. Since this project, the Wilsons’ work has explored Modernism and its ambitions through specific historical sites. They filmed at the American military base in Greenham Common, England, for Gamma (1999). Dreamtime (2001) was filmed during a Russian rocket launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the world’s largest space-launch center. A Free and Anonymous Monument (2003) uses four video screens to address the history of Victor Pasmore’s Apollo Pavilion, an architectonic sculpture built at the center of the town of Gateshead, England, and now covered with graffiti and regarded as a symbol of the failure of Modernist urban planning. This abstract structure is juxtaposed in the film with an oil rig whose function conversely dictates its form. For a 2006 exhibition at the Lisson Gallery entitled The New Brutalists, the Wilsons created an installation comprised of videos and large-scale photographs of the decrepit sites that once served as military outposts for the German Third Reich; such employment of brutalist architecture for violent ends extends the artists’ examination of the haunting afterlife of Modernist axioms.
The Wilson sisters have had exhibitions at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva (1997), Kunsthalle Hamburg (1999), the Tate in London (2000), Kunst-Werke Berlin (2002), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England (2003), and Bergen Art Museum in Norway (2005), among other venues. In 2005, the Wilsons were invited by the Royal Opera House in London to design sets for their production of Michael Tippett’s The Knot Garden. They have also exhibited widely in international group shows, including the Carnegie International (1999), Korean Biennial (2000), Istanbul Biennial (2001), Moving Pictures at theGuggenheim Museum Bilbao (2003), Remind at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2003), and Out of Time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2006). In 1999, they were shortlisted for the Turner Prize. They live and work in London.
Sign up will be posted on Tuesday 23 April at 11 AM. Either 5, 30 minute appointments will be available, or 3, 45 minute appointments. Meetings will begin at 2PM.
In addition to a lecture at the HAMMER on Tuesday 30 April, the Wilsons will be giving at artists talk at LACMA at 730pm on Thursday 25 April. See links below:
http://www.lacma.org/event/jane-and-louise-wilson
http://www.art.ucla.edu/events/index.html
Further reading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/oct/22/jane-and-louise-wilson-exhibition
http://www.303gallery.com/artists/jane_and_louise_wilson/index.php?p=press&docid=87
Further reading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/oct/22/jane-and-louise-wilson-exhibition
http://www.303gallery.com/artists/jane_and_louise_wilson/index.php?p=press&docid=87
