Interview: Haroon Mirza

16/02/18
Interview: Haroon Mirza

Published in the winter 2017 issue of Art Quarterly

Interview with Roger Hiorns

13/12/16

Interview: Roger Hiorns

Ikon Birmingham 

7 December 2016 - 5 March 2017

Roger Hiorns (b1975, Birmingham) is perhaps best known for his installation piece Seizure (2008), involving the bright blue crystallisation of the interior of an empty council flat on a housing estate near Elephant and Castle, London, commissioned by Artangel. Originally intended to remain only for a couple of years, the 31-tonne structure, for which Hiorns was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2009, was “saved” and transported to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, as part of the Arts Council Collection, where it is now on semi-permanent display. However, Hiorns’ key concern in all of his works – disparate as they might seem – is “putting the human back into the centre of an artwork”, be that by stuffing a falling mannequin with Heidegger text or secreted brain matter; burying an aeroplane and allowing visitors to enter it underground; presenting a deeply documental installation on variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; or planting two seven-metre-tall black granite furnaces on Bristol’s Temple Quay Central as part of an Art and the Public Realm Bristol commission.

With an exhibition opening at Ikon Birmingham, and the Bristol project nearing its (as yet unannounced) launch date, Hiorns welcomed Studio International to his studio on a housing estate in north London, where he talked about some of his key projects and the ideas behind – and linking – them.

Watch the interview here

• Roger Hiorns’ exhibition at Ikon Birmingham runs from 7 December 2016 to 5 March 2017. More information about The Retrospective View of the Pathway can be found at Art and the Public Realm Bristol’s website.

Video of Making It: Sculpture in Britain 1977-1986 at Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park

08/04/15

Making It: Sculpture in Britain 1977-1986

A Touring Exhibition from the Arts Council Collection

Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park
1 April – 21 June 2015

In the purpose-built Longside Gallery at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the Arts Council Collection has brought together the work of 40 artists from between 1977-1986, a period that saw the emergence of a new young generation of British sculptors. 

Following on from exhibitions of the work of Garth Evans (2013, curated by Richard Deacon) and Uncommon Ground: Land Art in Britain 1966-79 (2014), which between them covered the period from 1959-1982, where sculptural practice was very much ephemeral, conceptual, or based on performance, this current exhibition looks at the early 80s, a time when sculptural practice in the UK went back into the workshops to experiment with a completely new approach of assembling.

With half the exhibits drawn from the Arts Council Collection’s own rich holdings, and with women artists featuring prominently, this exhibition celebrates the treasury of British sculpture from the years leading up to the death of Henry Moore (himself not included, but with a parallel exhibition of his work, Back to a Land, on show in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Underground Gallery and open air).

A number of artists rose to prominence during this period, but there has been a lack of publications and survey exhibitions – until now. The exhibition is complemented by an excellent publication featuring insightful essays by 12 critics, writers, gallerists and curators.

Studio International spoke to co-curator, Jon Wood, from the Henry Moore Institute, and Jill Constantine, head of the Arts Council Collection, about how the exhibition came about and what its main themes are.

To watch these interviews, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/making-it-sculpture-in-britain-1977-1986-jon-wood-jill-constantine-video-interview