Dreamy, albeit discombobulating. British artist, Alex Hartley has transformed the gallery’s waterside garden into a scene of poetic dereliction and decay. This major architectural intervention A Gentle Collapsing II appears to have undergone an accelerated process of ageing – It is as if we have been teleported into the future in order to look back at the present or very recent past.
A Gentle Collapsing II, Timber, render, bricks, steel, paint, 2016
A reflection on the forgotten, a messenger of truth. Hartley’s work encourages us to consider how we experience and think about our constructed surroundings and explore ideas of privacy and voyeurism.
Installation view, Alex Hartley, After You Left
Entropy and decay are ever-present. Yet, for Hartley, this is a surprisingly fertile territory, one that allows the imagination to roam freely, to envision what might have been and what might be to come.
Installation view, Alex Hartley, After You Left
Alex Hartley is a British artist whose work explores our understanding of utopian ideologies; sanctuary, dystopia, community, belonging, and isolation. His early work focused on the white cube of the gallery space; testing the parameters of art’s containers. This has expanded to explore iconic modernist architectural forms, as the work considers buildings as social experiments manifested in both the built and natural environments.
Yew South East Elevation, Acrylic, C type photograph, plywood and paint, 2016
A Gentle Collapsing II, Timber, render, bricks, steel, paint, 2016
Admission: Free
Credits and Copyrights: Artwork Images (Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro London, Photography Thierry Bal).
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