Recessed.space

CERITH WYN EVANS GLOWS IN MAAT, LISBON

Read & See More at:
https://recessed.space/00311-Cerith-Wyn-Evans-MAAT-Lisbon
Link in bio

Cerith Wyn Evans has quietly become one of the most important British artists, quietly working his practice across film and sculpture since the 1980s while YBA artists and louder voices took centre stage. Over that time, however, he has been picking up important shows and awards, including the 2017 Tate Britain Commission for which he created an enormous vortex of white neon light. That work has now been installed in the Amanda Levete-designed MAAT in Lisbon, so Will Jennings went to see it and other works in the solo presentation.

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Some exhibitions seem like they can be picked up and placed into any modern art gallery and have the same impact as anywhere else. The concept of the white cube space is, after all, one of abstracted uniformity, where character, context, and any depth beneath the meticulous surfaces is hidden so as to not distract from the singular message of the inhabitant artworks.

Sometimes, artists or exhibitions seem perfectly paired for a space, and the meaning of both art objects on display and the surrounding architecture marries. This often happens within an historic or classical setting, where messages of new works juxtapose or mingle with an historic narrative, but at MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology alongside the River Tigus outside the centre of Lisbon a thoroughly contemporary space makes the perfect setting for a solo exhibition by Welsh artist Cerith Wyn Evans.

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CERITH WYN EVANS GLOWS IN MAAT, LISBON

Read & See More at:
https://recessed.space/00311-Cerith-Wyn-Evans-MAAT-Lisbon
Link in bio
Cerith Wyn Evans has quietly become one of the most important British artists, quietly working his practice across film and sculpture since the 1980s while YBA artists and louder voices took centre stage. Over that time, however, he has been picking up important shows and awards, including the 2017 Tate Britain Commission for which he created an enormous vortex of white neon light. That work has now been installed in the Amanda Levete-designed MAAT in Lisbon, so Will Jennings went to see it and other works in the solo presentation.

-----

Some exhibitions seem like they can be picked up and placed into any modern art gallery and have the same impact as anywhere else. The concept of the white cube space is, after all, one of abstracted uniformity, where character, context, and any depth beneath the meticulous surfaces is hidden so as to not distract from the singular message of the inhabitant artworks.

Sometimes, artists or exhibitions seem perfectly paired for a space, and the meaning of both art objects on display and the surrounding architecture marries. This often happens within an historic or classical setting, where messages of new works juxtapose or mingle with an historic narrative, but at MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology alongside the River Tigus outside the centre of Lisbon a thoroughly contemporary space makes the perfect setting for a solo exhibition by Welsh artist Cerith Wyn Evans.

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URSULA K LE GUIN’S SPECULATIVE CARTOGRAPHY

A recent exhibition at London’s Architectural Association presented maps drawn by author Ursula K. Le Guin as part of her authorial worldbuilding process. Sam Moore visited to explore her maps and drawings to think not only about the imaginary places represented, but our own personal and collective relationships to the world we inhabit.

Read & See More at:
https://recessed.space/00310-Ursula-Le-Guin-AA
Link in bio

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In the short story On Exactitude in Science, Jorge Luis Borges writes about a people who were dissatisfied with the already grand scales of their ambitious cartography, wherein “the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire the entirety of a Province.” The Cartographers Guild grew to think that maps of this size were unable to capture the details of their lands, and so a map of the Empire was created, one the size of the Empire itself.

Cartography has always had a speculative aspect to it; maps and globes and records of a land exist to tell a story of that land. Even the way in which we understand our own planet is informed by these things; where some maps distort the size of locations, the Peters Projection Map aims to show countries that are all correct in size, relative to one another. The map then, is a political document as much as anything else, something which echoes through the speculative cartography of author Ursula K. Le Guin.

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publications

moore94

URSULA K. LE GUIN’S SPECULATIVE CARTOGRAPHY

A recent exhibition at London’s Architectural Association presented maps drawn by author Ursula K. Le Guin as part of her authorial worldbuilding process. Sam Moore visited to explore her maps and drawings to think not only about the imaginary places represented, but our own personal and collective relationships to the world we inhabit.

Read & See More at:
https://recessed.space/00310-Ursula-Le-Guin-AA
Link in bio

-----

In the short story On Exactitude in Science, Jorge Luis Borges writes about a people who were dissatisfied with the already grand scales of their ambitious cartography, wherein “the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire the entirety of a Province.” The Cartographers Guild grew to think that maps of this size were unable to capture the details of their lands, and so a map of the Empire was created, one the size of the Empire itself.

Cartography has always had a speculative aspect to it; maps and globes and records of a land exist to tell a story of that land. Even the way in which we understand our own planet is informed by these things; where some maps distort the size of locations, the Peters Projection Map aims to show countries that are all correct in size, relative to one another. The map then, is a political document as much as anything else, something which echoes through the speculative cartography of author Ursula K. Le Guin.

-----


publications

moore94