Serpentine Galleries presents an exhibition by Cerith Wyn Evans at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery. This major solo show presents a varied body of work brought together ‘in concert’, and Wyn Evans has described the exhibition as “responding to the spaces which examine the transformative ‘Site/Sight/Cite’ effects that light, sound and duration can have on both spaces and their occupants. The site of the gallery, the perception of sight, the citation of references are multiple and swarming.”

Wyn Evans began his career as a film and video maker, producing short experimental films in the late 1970s. Since the 1990s, his work has been characterised by its focus on language and its articulation in space through perception, as well as a precise, conceptual clarity that is often developed out of the context or history of the exhibition site. For Wyn Evans, installations should work like a catalyst: a reservoir of possible meanings that can unravel many discursive journeys.His work has a highly refined aesthetic that is often informed by his magpie like approach to influences which shape and colour his practice.

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The incorporation of text, either as the source of a work or as the final form that it takes, addresses this process of interpretation directly. Ornate chandeliers are transformed into communication devices via software systems that translate texts into Morse code, evoking notions of otherworldly communication; neon tubes are bent into quotes that form a frieze of light that runs around the room.

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Wyn Evans’ references include John Cage, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Iannis Xenakis, Georges Bataille, James Merrill, Marcel Duchamp, Pierre Klossowski, Hanne Darboven, Gilles Deleuze, Marcel Proust, Sturtevant, Andy Warhol…Etc, etc. These sources, even if made visible, are often treated as Readymades and are grouped in synchronicity and contradistinction with one another, enabling any number of potential discourses.

Wyn Evans’ use of sound, as well as light, as a transformative and yet intangible medium will be a key feature of the exhibition at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery. Mechanical flutes, suspended in the central spaces, will sound throughout the building, while a directional speaker placed on the gallery floor will produce a column of sound that draws attention to the surrounding architecture. Lights appear to inhale and exhale, replicating the rhythm and cadences, intervals and textures of a score. These sounds, lights and above all a neon text that will wrap frieze-like around the entire exhibition space, will draw visitors around the building in a choreographed promenade punctuated by encounters with objects and unexpected vistas.

photo serpentinegalleries.org

photo serpentinegalleries.org

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