15 – 08 October 2009
At Frieze Art Fair 2009, Sadie Coles HQ will install a solo project by British artist Hilary Lloyd. The gallery’s booth will house Studio #2 (2009), a walkthrough installation comprising four video projections on separate walls, a version of the work which was premiered at Le Consortium, Dijon earlier this year. Shot in Lloyd’s studio, each video is a silent and meticulous study of reflected light. The play of light across an ambiguous material – variously suggestive of Mylar, glass, water or mere haze – is captured to create fields of ethereal filmic and painterly abstraction: a dazzling white shard refracts light prismatically into beams; while on another wall concentric bands shimmer like giant eyes, calling to mind a psychedelic painting.
The differently sized projections vary between gradual metamorphosis, abrupt flashes and mercurial convolutions. The evanescent reflections that are scrutinised unerringly in each video are often reminiscent of phosphenes, the chimerical shapes seen with closed eyes, or possibly a symptom of a hallucinogenic. Splintered white beams evoke the experience of looking into the sun; and in one projection, bright flecks swim across the screen like floaters over the retina in bright light. The works in this way induce intense optical experiences that play out the very process of seeing. Moreover, the illusion of milky depth within the projections is intermittently counteracted by tectonic shifts or sudden changes in brightness, emphasizing the sensuous flat surface of Lloyd’s subject-matter.
The element of self-reflexivity in Studio #2 recalls English structural film with its emphasis on fixed perspectives, ‘duration’ and the materiality of the medium. As in previous installations by Hilary Lloyd, the projectors and DVD players have been suspended prominently into the space, with their cabling extending across the ceiling, fetishising the technical equipment and its sculptural qualities and again underlining the physical substrate of the installation.
In the context of Frieze, this film installation also alludes unmistakably to painting. The concentrated projection of the videos onto the walls creates the impression of a gallery of canvases and perhaps imagines the mini retrospective of an abstract artist. The heavily distorted, streaked forms of the videos and their restrained ‘palettes’ indeed call to mind the giant abstracts of Gerhard Richter and the illusionistic kinetic quality of Op-Art paintings by the likes of Riley and Vasarély.
Hilary Lloyd (b. 1964) lives and works in London. Major solo shows include: Le Consortium, Dijon, France, 2009; Kunstverein München, München, Germany, 2006; Waiters, Henry Moore Foundation Contemporary Projects, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2003; Kino der Dekonstruktion, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany, 2000; Chisenhale Gallery, London, 1999. Group shows include: Little Theatre of Gestures, Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland, 2009; Dispersion, ICA, London, 2008; and Art Sheffield 08. Yes, No & Other Options, Sheffield, UK, 2008. From October – December 2009, she will show new work at Tramway, Glasgow.
10 September – 08 October 2008
Sadie Coles HQ is delighted to present the first solo show in London of British artist Hilary Lloyd since 1999. This exhibition premieres a new piece made in real time using digital video. Charged, composed and economic, the work captures the intense concentration of both the protagonists and the artist. Shot in London over a period of months in the same place and with the same group of people, the film has been edited using the camera itself, on site with no post-production. Made in three parts that are synchronised and screened simultaneously, the film is part of Lloyd’s ongoing investigation into the rigours of controlled video making. The resulting film is claustrophobic, totally in the present moment, moody and rhythmic. Accompanied by a murmuring soundtrack, as always Lloyd chooses to exhibit her work in a way that reveals all of the related technical paraphernalia, rendering it sculptural and essential.
Working principally in the particular medium of video, but also using 8mm film and 35mm slides, Lloyd makes work according to the driving theme of the modern city and its potential as a site of voyeurism and fetishism. To date, Lloyd's work forms a compulsive study of striking and sexually ambiguous occupants from our contemporary urban populace involved in specific rituals of everyday life: construction workers, waiters, roller skaters and clubbers. Lloyd involves the viewer in a distilled process of examination of her subjects, looking at them from different angles, in various lights, in specific and varying crops, as a process of re-contextualizing and appropriating actions or signs for our delectation. Her work often evolves from the relationships she forms with strangers, requiring a certain willingness of her subjects to collaborate, as for example in Princess Julia Slide Projection (1997) in which she followed the renowned club DJ Princess Julia working one night. A sense of theatre pervades Lloyds work, distilled and transposed into the perceptual space of minimalism by highlighting the actions of people or structures on the fringe of the city. Lloyd is as inclined and capable of doing this with a person, an activity, or paint patterns left behind on a studio floor. Yet throughout, Lloyd maintains an air of invitation, preserving the moment of encounter with the city and its inhabitants, making portraits of urban life as complex as Dickens, Pepys or Balzac.
Hilary Lloyd lives and works in London. Major solo shows include: Kunstverein München, München, Germany, 2006; Waiters, Henry Moore Foundation Contemporary Projects, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2003; Kino der Dekonstruktion, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany, 2000; Chisenhale Gallery, London, 1999. Group shows include: Art Sheffield 08. Yes, No & Other Options, Sheffield, UK, 2008; Die Blaue Blume, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria, 2007; Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France, 2007; Pause it, Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea, 2002; Intelligence: New British Art, Tate Britain, London, 2000; The British Art Show 5, City Art Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland and touring, 2000. In spring 2009 Lloyd will have a solo exhibition at Le Consortium, Dijon, France. This will be accompanied by a long-awaited publication.
17 January - 16 February 2008: FILMS
For one month Sadie Coles HQ will be filled with FILMS. The exhibition presents an expanded notion of film and is a celebration of this exceptionally diverse and detailed medium, beloved of artists, now being superseded by new digital technologies.
Works will be shown on a variety of formats, specifically 35mm slides, video, 8mm and 16mm film. Each week will showcase work by a different artist.
Sarah Lucas
Sausage Film, 1990, Betacam SP
The first and only film by Lucas is the epitome of her confrontational style: the artist saucily skins, slices and eats a sausage and a banana.
Thursday 17 – Saturday 19 January
TJ Wilcox
The Death and Burial of the First Emperor of China, 1997, 16mm
‘It was in the '70s that they found this tomb. It was guarded by these terracotta warriors and now they have found ten thousand of them...’
Tuesday 22 - Saturday 26 January
Jim Lambie
Ultralow, 1998, Beta SP Video
A metronome for our darker hours…
Tuesday 29 January – Saturday 02 February
Wilhelm Sasnal
Kodachrome, 2006, Super-8 film
Europa, 2007, 16mm film
These two films by Sasnal focus on the medium itself, one using just text and soundtrack to describe a classic movie scene, the other a homage to Kodachrome and its place in 20th century history.
Tuesday 05 – Saturday 09 February
Hilary Lloyd
Princess Julia Slide Projection, 1997, 35mm slides
Lloyd’s first slide projection shows Princess Julia journeying to and from work.
Tuesday 12 – Saturday 16 February