LONDON.- From July 2015
Wellcome Collection presents a major exhibition of works by artist Alice Anderson: ‘Memory Movement Memory Objects’. Anderson’s sculptures are entirely mummified in copper thread, creating glistening landscapes of beautiful, uncanny and transformed objects. Each piece is an exploration and act of memory. Both the making and display of works interrogate how we create, record, and transform the present and how we imagine the future. Over 100 works woven round with wire are displayed and, uniquely, visitors are invited to contribute to the creation of a new artwork during the run of the exhibition, as a car is mummified in the gallery.
‘Memory Movement Memory Objects’ comprises five areas, the first of which, ‘the Studio’, extends the creative process of the artist’s practice into the gallery. Visitors are able to spend time mummifying a 1967 Ford Mustang and other smaller objects with copper wire, in a performance at once meditative and communal. The objects have significance to the artist but there is no nostalgia in their selection. The sounds of unspooling bobbins of wire and metal enclosing metal provide a soundtrack to the space, where collaborative focus and repetitive movement elicit a reflection on consciousness and our mutable relationship to time.
‘Recognisable Objects’ brings together familiar shapes, from computers, window frames, drawing books and bicycles, to larger structures, such as a staircase and a boat. Both taken from the artist’s studio and created by invited contributors, these works are presented as glittering ensembles. ‘Abstract Objects’ features geometric forms where ornamentation is held not in the shape of objects but the shining textured patterns of the copper wire that contains them. ‘Assemblage and Accumulation’ makes unlikely and suggestive alignments, with grouped items bound and encapsulated together. ‘Distorted Objects’ sees new shapes emerge as objects are twisted and transformed by the pressure of wire wound around them, or physical definition is lost to the accretion of copper.
The gallery carries the mesmerising glint of displayed treasure, akin to entering a Pharaoh’s tomb, but the objects on show are fashioned relics, or new archaeology. Strikingly lit, the sheen of copper is, for the artist, key to the absorbing physical and mental experience of entombing objects. The process of mummification is simultaneously a gesture of protection and an invocation of death, and Anderson’s exquisite sculptures pose challenging questions about the comforts and consolations of creating and sharing memories. Offering an alternative way of remembering, the exhibition animates the terrain where movement, objects and consciousness meet.
Alice Anderson says: “‘Memory Movement Memory Objects’ brings together works and process in the gallery. The Studio is a place producing a solidarity bound to objects. Each woven item is a ritual object. Small ones elicit an intense concentration, generating fast motions, whilst larger objects require slower movements that engender deep collaboration and exchange. These charged works are markers of time and affirm for me the value of physical records and the power of human memory in the fascinating digital age we live in.”
Kate Forde, Curator, says: “With this exhibition Alice Anderson shows that even those objects that ‘speak’ to us because of their familiarity are fundamentally altered by our experience of time. Anderson’s invitation to create a social sculpture will enable visitors to discover both the unstable nature of memory and its profoundly creative potential. As we attempt to bridge the gap between then and now we are also called upon to connect with each other, and to move from being onlookers to participants.”
‘Memory Movement Memory Objects’ runs from 22 July to 18 October 2015. A publication and full programme of events accompanies the exhibition.
