Gillian Wearing

Description

British artist Gillian Wearing, winner of the 1997 Turner Prize, uses photography and video to explore the intimacies and complexities of everyday life. Borrowing from popular culture, her work is disturbing and confessional. In 1992 she began the acclaimed series Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants them to say’, in which random passers-by are photographed holding messages they’ve written, such as the mild-mannered young businessman whose sign unexpectedly reads ‘I’m Desperate’.

Wearing’s work borrows from familiar forms of popular culture to produce direct, revealing records of deep-seated human trauma and emotion, often adopting the methods of television documentaries for her ‘fly-on-the-wall’ view of people’s lives. Her videos can be alarming, as in Confess All … in which masked individuals confess their darkest secrets, or humorous, as in (Slight) Reprise – a sampler of adults playing ‘air guitar’ in the fantasy rock stadium of their bedrooms. Her art can be disconcerting or uplifting: an honest portrait of the many sides to contemporary life.

With exhibitions in Britain, the US, Europe and Japan, Wearing is among the best-known and most internationally recognized of the recent generation of British artists. This is the first publication ever to survey this remarkable young artist’s gripping work in its entirety.

Russell Ferguson of UCLA’s  Hammer Museum contextualizes Wearing’s work in relation to historical precedents in painting, photography and video art. Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art Donna De Salvo discusses with the artist her collaborative approach towards her work and its subjects. London-based critic John Slyce focuses on Wearing’s work 10-16, a remarkable video installation that charts our transition from childhood to adolescence. The artist has selected transcripts from director Michael Apted’s acclaimed British television documentary series Seven Up, an important influence on the process Wearing uses in her own work. Published here for the first time in full are the transcripts of the artist’s video works.

Russell Ferguson is Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs and Chief Curator at the University of California, Los Angeles, Hammer Museum. He edited Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object 1949-1979 (1998) and Douglas Gordon (2001) and has published in international journals such as Parkett and art/text.

Donna De Salvo is Associate Director for Programs and Curator, Permanent Collection, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Formerly Senior Curator at Tate Modern, she has curated exhibitions on Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol and Anish Kapoor, among others.

John Slyce (Focus) is a freelance writer on contemporary art who specializes in the young British scene.

On the Contemporary Artists Series

“The boldest, best executed, and most far-reaching publishing project devoted to contemporary art. These books will revolutionize the way contemporary art is presented and written about.”—Artforum

“The combination of intelligent analysis, personal insight, useful facts and plentiful pictures is a superb format invaluable for specialists but also interesting for casual readers, it makes these books a must for the library of anyone who cares about contemporary art.”—Time Out

“A unique series of informative monographs on individual artists.”—The Sunday Times

“Gives the reader the impression of a personal encounter with the artists. Apart from the writing which is lucid and illuminating, it is undoubtedly the wealth of lavish illustrations which makes looking at these books a satisfying entertainment.”—The Art Book

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