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Bulloch, Pryde: Sky, Rocks & Digits

Exhibition details

Start:
5 November, 2020
End:
9 January, 2021
Event Category:

6 NOVEMBER – 9 JANUARY, 2021
PRIVATE VIEW: THURSDAY 5 NOVEMBER, 6 – 8 PM
SIMON LEE GALLERY, HONG KONG

Simon Lee Gallery is pleased to present Sky, Rocks & Digits, a joint exhibition of works by Berlin-based artists Angela Bulloch and Josephine Pryde. Concerned with the interplay between bodies and technology, both artists explore the historic and ongoing significance of technological mediation and what that produces, enables or prohibits.

The ambiguity of the word ‘digits’ – signifying fingers, numerals or data – provides a point of entry to a central theme in Bulloch’s practice: the use of technology to navigate the world, from a vast, universal perspective, to the small human scale of the artist’s fingertip. In Never Ending with iPad (2015) a stack of geometric units, conceived and designed using 3D imaging, has anthropomorphic proportions; crowned with a tablet installed with the video game Monument Valley, the sculpture invites its audience to become active participants in both the game and the artwork. In her Night Sky works, Bulloch recreates remote constellations as observed from various positions within the universe. Similarly to the sculptures, these twinkling installations explore the slippage between realms of the real and the virtual as we experience first-hand that which is fundamentally inaccessible without the aid of advanced technologies.

In Josephine Pryde’s photographic Hands (Für mich) series manicured women’s hands tap at touch-sensitive or tactile objects: phones, tablets, a piece of driftwood. Their brightly coloured nail varnish, sometimes slightly chipped, highlights the point of contact between body and object. The model’s head is never visible, concentrating the sense of an intimacy between the hands and the surfaces they touch. In recent additions to the series, Pryde has framed black and white photographs behind coloured Perspex, creating a physical filter through which the hands are seen continuing their explorations. Bulloch’s Working Manicure, is a performative intervention, first conceived of in 1996. The artwork is a specific manicure to be worn by members of gallery staff: a manicure with a twist. Instead of the classic French manicure, Bulloch simulates dirty fingernails by replacing the white tip with a band of black polish. Working Manicure is a conceptual sculpture that playfully probes artistic production.

In a recent series of works, Pryde investigates prehistoric engravings made in rock between 2000-4000 years ago, known broadly as ‘cup and ring’ markings, which re-occur across a large region of Western Europe, from Scotland through Northumberland, to France, Spain and Portugal. The selected photographs combine two prints taken from different negatives, often of different carvings, juxtaposed in the same frame. Thus, no one singular image is used to pin down the technique or design. Pryde is interested in the connections between the carvings, and the migrations of people and ideas implied by their distribution, form and the technical knowledge needed to make them, rather than in speculating on what the patterns might ‘mean’ – something that would regardless evade contemporary human knowledge. To the present day, the carvings remain outside, suggesting links drawn through time and space, caught in the rock beneath the open sky.

About Angela Bulloch

Angela Bulloch was born in 1966 in Rainy River, Canada and lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She has been Professor of Time-Based Media at the HFBK in Hamburg since 2018. Bulloch’s work has been shown extensively internationally and has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon, Portugal (2019); Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, UAE (2016); Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2012); Stadtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany (2011); Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany (2008) and Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2005). Major institutional group shows include Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany (2017), Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, UK (2016); Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany (2015); Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2014); FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkirk, France (2014); Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2011) and Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (2008). Her work is represented in major institutions and private collections worldwide, including Tate, London, UK; Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany; Le Consortium Dijon, France; De Pont, Tilburg, The Netherlands and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, UAE.

About Josephine Pryde

Josephine Pryde was born in Alnwick, UK, in 1967 and lives and works between London, UK, and Berlin, Germany.  Since 2008, she has been Professor of Contemporary Art and Photography at the University of the Arts, Berlin.  In 2016 she was nominated for the Turner Prize presented by Tate Britain, London, UK.  Notable solo museum exhibitions include ICA Philadelphia, PA (2015); CCA Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA (2015); Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2014); Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland (2012); Kunstverein Düsseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany (2012); Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK (2011) and Secession, Vienna, Austria (2004).  Her work is represented in major institutions and private collections worldwide including Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France; British Council, London, UK; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY and The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL.

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