Cerith Wyn Evans transmit/receive

Cerith Wyn Evans
transmit/receive 
11 April – 10 May 2014
Auckland
(concurrently at Hopkinson Mossman and Michael Lett)

Hopkinson Mossman and Michael Lett are pleased to present transmit/receive, a solo exhibition by Cerith Wyn Evans. The exhibition will take place across both gallery spaces, and mark the first exhibition of Wyn Evans’ work in Australasia.

Cerith Wyn Evans’ conceptual practice can be characterised by a phenomenological interest in the nature of perception and a curiosity for the liminal space between thought and experience. Concerns and questions of communication, transmission, contradiction and flux are at the core of Wyn Evans’ work. His practice is both intellectually and philosophically rich, and formally balances material decadence with, at times, an austere minimalism.

Wyn Evans’ process is one of poetic interference. Throughout his practice, words, phrases and extracts drawn from literature, philosophy, film and critical theory are used both as forms in themselves and as generators of voids, stutters or stammers. History’s greatest cultural icons and most radical creative minds (such as Guy Debord, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Stéphane Mallarmé, to name a few) are cited and quoted.

Wyn Evans uses materials as a filter – light, neon, literature, glass, mirror, paper, sound – to create ruptures in space that act as proposals for other kinds of experience. His subtly immersive installations appear like reduced, abstract mise en scène where sculptures generate sensations, tilt the viewer’s perception and encourage a free flow of associations.

For transmit/receive, Wyn Evans has conceived of an exhibition across two gallery sites. The installations are contrapuntal; harmonious but independent, connected yet with nuance in tone and affect. The works in transmit/receive draw on texts and music as source but the translation to artwork is encrypted; a chandelier is wired to transmit music through flashing light signals like Morse code, and illuminated neon texts propose poetic interruptions. Like invocations or séance, Wyn Evans’ works invite us to revisit the lyrical or generative space created by these words in the artists mind.

Cerith Wyn Evans (b. 1951) lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Sankt Peter Kunst-Station, Cologne (2013); TBA21 Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (2013); Bergen Kunsthall (2011); Tramway, Glasgow (2009); Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2009); MUSAC, Leon (2008); Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris (2006); and Kunsthaus Graz (2005). In 2009 he collaborated with Florian Hecker and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary on ‘No night No day’ at the 53rd Venice Biennale and has also participated in: Moscow Biennial (2011); Aichi Triennale (2010); the Yokohama Triennale (2008); the International Istanbul Biennial (2005); and the Venice Biennale (2003). In 2011 he was commissioned by the Vienna State Opera to design the safety curtains for 2011-2012 opera season.