MARGATE.- Turner Contemporary is presenting the first major exhibition to explore the centrality of the circle in art. Featuring more than 100 works – from 3000BC to the present day – Seeing Round Corners: The Art of the Circle brings together artworks and artefacts that reflect a vast range of themes and ideas from roundness, rotation and visual perception to wonderment and cycles of time. The exhibition encompasses sculpture, film, painting, design, installation, performance and photography, with works by leading historical and contemporary artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Paul Nash, Barbara Hepworth, JMW Turner, Theaster Gates, Rebecca Horn, David Shrigley and Bridget Riley.
The exhibition considers the ways in which artists have gravitated to this universal and recurring form. From the globe of the earth and the rotation of the planets, to the shape of the human eye or the smallest atomic particle, the circle - as a form and as an idea - is at the heart of our relationship to the world. Seeing Round Corners : The Art of the Circle explores the significance and symbolism of the circle and sphere in art and culture; architecture and engineering; astronomy and geometry; optics and perception; religion, spirituality and everyday life.
The exhibition was conceived and co-curated by artists David Ward and Jonathan Parsons. In partnership with Turner Contemporary, they have sought to achieve broad cultural and historical scope across the exhibition. The result is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view Leonardo da Vinci juxtaposed with Barbara Hepworth and Alison Turnbull; William Blake with Wolfgang Tilmans and Carl Andre; ancient Egyptian sculpture with Anish Kapoor and Nancy Holt. The exhibition makes connections across eras and disciplines, creating a breadth and richness conceived to ensure fresh inspiration on every repeat visit.
Ward says: “I have often thought that very simple works of art can stimulate multiple associations and sometimes, the most complex responses. The circle has this potential because it reson ates with so much in our everyday lives and with objects and phenomena that have shaped the development of civilisations around the world from the most ancient of day s. The circle has the capacity to embody immensely diverse metaphorical and poetic experience .”
As artists, Ward and Parsons see the world from a particular creative perspective that is evident in their unique organisation of the exhibition. Every work and its position has been mapped to offer visitors new insights, highlighting the adaptability of ‘roundness’ as the circle is transformed into discs, spheres, spirals and ellipses. They also explore the idea of the circle as a source of comfort and warmth, associated with human embrace, touch and the eye.
Parsons says: “The means by whic h human beings have come to understand and navigate the perceptual world are fascinating in their diversity, but they also reveal a certain unity. How and why are objects and images produced? Who makes them, what are they made of and why are they significa nt? This exhibition, I hope, shows that the artefacts we create to make sense of our experiences demonstrate a common humanity , which is something to be recognised and celebrated .”
Some of the works in the exhibition have never been seen before in the UK, including a new film entitled Lids and Straws (One Minute) by Christian Marclay and Tabletop Mobile by Alexander Calder. Other key works include: The Leonardo Notebook - two diagrammatic sketches from the celebrated Codex Arundel from The British Library; a beautiful view of Stonehenge at sunset by JMW Turner; three works by landscape painter and pioneer of Modernism in Britain Paul Nash; a film by Marina Abramovich and Ulay; another by Lindsay Seers; A Complicated Relationship between H e aven and Earth. When We Believe, an installation by Theaster Gates, a version of which won the prestigious Artes Mundi prize in 2015.
