roger hiorns at the church of saint paulinus
6th november - 8th december 2007
saint paulinus, brough park, richmond, north yorkshire DL10 7PJ
curator; greville worthington
assistant curator; loz atkinson
works featured;
- all night chemist 2004 - engine, chair, copper sulphate
- crystal mission 1998 - paper, card, perspex, wood , copper sulphate
- kwic 2000 - ceramic, compressor, foam, plastic
- untitled 2007 - metal filings, boeing 747 jet engine, metal powder
- untitled 2006 - 1000watt mercury discharge lightbulb, semen
the following is from an interview with roger hiorns conducted by hannah duguid, which feature in the exhibitions catalogue;i am not sentimental. i have no relationship with my work once it is completed. objects can encourage sentimentality and i think i may have to not care about them. its a complex relationship - objects have a tendency to impinge their will on you. mr worthington's exhibition is very different to the usual. i feel the process of the exhibition is perhaps more about mr worthington than it is about me. the church is interesting as it is a decommisioned church, a tricky place to live as you're always going to be reminded of a religious attachment, and a compulsion that comes with it. the family church, i consider, is full of ghosts if you're mindful of that kind of business. i dont usually entertain shows that are personal as the work has to offer a certain blank face to the outside world. for it to be a successful piece of artwork, it should exist in its own nature. it has to encourage an independant logic. the feelings i have from setting the process of this exhibition in the redundant family church are certainly uncomfortable, and lead me to believe this is more about mr worthington , more than he possibly feels comfortable with.
one of the works is the dust from grinding a passenger aircraft engine to fine dust, scattered on the floor as a pile, a sort of redundancy of process. and there is a foam work, a model of entropy, and due process, applied to the principals of law but not justice - they suggest an inescapable closed circle, a cold cell perhaps. there is a light - a 1000 watt bulb covered in the artist's semen. the mercury discharge bulb is so bright that it is almost impossible to look at, making the church almost unbearable. it is a fundamental changing of the nature of visable light , of context - perhaps an amplified expression of will. this work was performed on a large scale on the lights of the parthenon in athens - the ancient structure illuminated by a newer context. the engine work in this exhibition is 'all night chemist'; you're in some kind of trouble if you find yourself in an all night chemist: they seem to enhance the inessential nature of one's life, perhaps. the totemic and the ritualistic are inherent within the engine work, it is built under disciplines, set by me to be dehumanizing. they negate the human, the artist. the crystals form according to the set laws of nature.
there is an active need for preservation within the concept of the work. this goes through most of the work i make. it has an inner distructive tendency. these pieces are more or less exclusively sold to institutions because they have an apparent contract with art to protect and preserve artwork to a degree that it needs to be looked after. it's eternal preservation. it interests me that some things could be worthless now and yet in the future become fundamentally important artwork. maybe interest in anything is about having somethingto look forward to. i'm not interested in my work being passive. they're actors in this scene. i made a commissioned piece for the chapel at jesus college, cambridge. it is a piece of sterling silver 5mm thick, a metre high and half a metre wide - a simple minimalist object. it was fixed to the wall at the entrance to the chapel where people rubbed against it as they leaned on the wall before the service. i didnt want to play the passive role of putting a sculpture in a quad. everything has its reason to exist. i'm not interested in playing at being a typical artist making an artwork and putting it on dispplay. this suggests a straight relationship to the world somehow. i'm interested in the work being problematic. it has to be active and the viewer must activate the work. it's a kind of complicated relationship to be encourages. to realise that a veiwer can play this role and become actively engaged with the work. it becomes part of its language.
the object will always be there unless there is some kind of catastrophe. time will be an interesting part of the work. i may end up not making objects at all. i may just do plays or monologues. perhaps i might become an airline pilot. i'm interested in encouraging the idea that i'mnot going to be doing this forever. it makesit easier to not set yourself in stone. i dont want my work to be a personal memorial to a life onced lived. if i were to go prematurely, or tragically, these objects would be placed in a certain context, of course. they become a personal memorial once you have gone. it's an interesting concept to think about something being left behind particularly if you dont buy into the biblical next stage. heaven and hell are what we create for ourselves. the truth is perhaps simpler.
an intimate relation to dark matter and star dust most probably awaits. we will probably become part of a new planetary system, become urainium, calcium perhaps - somewhere once this planet has disposed itself. we should be aware that at the end of the century we will enter the eremozoic era, 'the age of loniness' half the species currently on earth will be extinct, the next period will be one of great change. these objects have the highest regard for the next period.
some images i took of the exhibitions installation
and a few from the opening
roger has been nominated for the 2009 turner prize. all my very best wishes go out to him CONGRATULATIONS!!
