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luglio 15, 2016 - Barbican centre

Bedwyr Williams: The Gulch at The Curve, Barbican Centre

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This autumn, Welsh artist #bedwyrwilliams sends visitors on a quest through the 90-metre long Curve gallery for his first solo show in a public space in #london. The gallery is transformed into a series of theatrical installations conceived to transport and disorient the viewer. Taking the vertiginous gorge- like form of the Curve as his starting point and title, Williams plays on the winding, linear nature of the space. He subverts any expectation of conventional narrative by creating a series of physical and metaphorical twists and turns. Gallery visitors descend into the space, navigating from one seemingly disparate scene to the next on a journey that summons surreal visions and imagined plots. From a pair of singing running shoes to a depressed hypnotist and a talking goat, visitors are confronted by various protagonists and in turn find themselves invited to stage their own performances. #bedwyrwilliams: The Gulch opens in the Curve gallery on Thursday 29 September 2016.
Bedwyr Williams said: “People take a sharp intake of breath when I say that I have a show in the Curve. Challenging space they say. As someone who likes to lead the viewer on a linear-ish merry dance, this challenging space is perfect. The Barbican and its vibe spirits me back to the dark concrete and brick theatres and art centres I visited as a child. It’s that coupled with the Curve’s space, which is also a journey, that informed my show The Gulch. There’s a talking goat in it.”
Bedwyr Williams’s practice encompasses a diverse range of mediums from performance to sculpture to painting to video, often resulting in immersive installations. He draws on the banalities and idiosyncrasies of his own life and the world around him. Williams’s tales range from the absurd and extraordinary to the mind-numbingly ordinary; visitors are invited to share his curiosity, awkwardness, anger, embarrassment, delight and confusion in the world as we are drawn into the compelling scenarios he conjures. His wry humour often questions cultural snobbery and elevates minute observations to a monumental scale.
Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican, said: “It is with enormous pleasure that we are able to present #bedwyrwilliams in the Curve this Autumn, giving him his first public showing in #london. Filled with surprises and inviting participation for those so inclined, The Gulch is a perfect reflection of Williams’s subversive, witty and altogether endearing world.”
Williams’s previous works include the film Century Egg (2015), which questions the idea of preserving and archiving and explores the imagined narratives of objects in the collections of the University of Cambridge. The film is included in the current British Art Show. Echt at the Tramway, Glasgow, for Glasgow International (2014) was an immersive piece staging an encounter in a forest clearing: an abandoned tour bus opened onto a film exploring a dystopian country of the future, in which a feudal system has caused conflict, hoarders rule, and courts are set up in dance halls and clubs. In The Starry Messenger, first presented at the Welsh Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2013) and recently at The Whitworth, Manchester (2015-16), visitors encountered an absent amateur astronomer’s observatory and heard his occasional sobbing. A video installation explored the macroscopic and the microscopic nature of the cosmos in which we exist and mused on the history and technique of the ‘terrazzo’ mosaic, a cosmos in itself.
Bedwyr Williams was born in St. Asaph, Wales, and lives and works in Caernarfon, Wales. He studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, #london, and Ateliers Arnhem, The Netherlands. He is a winner of the Paul Hamlyn Award, represented Wales at the Venice Biennale 2013 and has recently been selected for the shortlists for both the prestigious Jarman Award and the Artes Mundi 7 Prize.
The Curve, Barbican, London
Public information: 0845 120 7550 / www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery Free admission
The Curve opening times:
Saturday - Wednesday 11am–8pm
Thursday & Friday 11am–9pm
Bank Holidays 12pm–8pm
The gallery will close early for a private #event on Friday 7 October. Please check the website for more information.
Exhibition
The Gulch is curated by the Barbican and supported using public funding by Arts Council England and with the support of the Henry Moore Foundation.
Bedwyr Williams and the Barbican are working in collaboration with students in Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s Technical Theatre department, who have been commissioned to produce a scenic backdrop for the installation. Flexure, the film presented at the centre of the installation, has been commissioned for Macclesfield’s Barnaby Festival 2016 (17 – 26 June 2016).
Events
A programme of talks and events accompanies the exhibition, including an artist talk and book launch; a series of performances within the installation throughout the run of the show; and an audio walk written and performed by the artist, which can be downloaded and listened to by visitors as they walk around the #barbicancentre, extending the content of the show beyond the Curve. Other events may be added to the programme soon.
Check the website for full listings: www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery

Bedwyr Williams: The Gulch
The Curve, Barbican Centre


29 September 2016 – 8 January 2017


Media View, Wednesday 28 September, 10am – 1pm Free Admission
Supported using public funding by Arts Council England and with the support of the Henry Moore Foundation