Alice Anderson
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| Alice Anderson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1972[1] London, England |
| Nationality | British, French |
| Education | Goldsmiths, University of London, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts |
| Known for | Sculpture, Performance, Film |
Alice Anderson (born 1972) is a French-British sculptor and filmmaker. She works primarily with copper wire.
Contents
Work
Alice Anderson was mainly known for her films until 2007 when she started to create sculptures with elements of her own body in 2008. Her soft pieces constructed of red fibre made feminine claims and were the most disruptive.
In 2011, Anderson’s practice took a new direction following her personal exhibition at the Freud Museum in London, where she worked on Anna Freud’s loom and initiated geometrical works of lines and grids in the spirit of Agnes Martin. This is also when Anderson began to use copper wire.
With the ‘Wire’ project, Anderson wound copper wire around the objects, furniture and architectural elements in her London studio. Desiring to encourage collective discussions and human exchanges, Anderson invited people to join in her actions expressing her own belief in art as a powerfully charged communal 'rituals' to forge a collective identity in the present.
This experience was going to initiate the basis of her new practice aiming to transmit Memory.[2] The ‘performed objects’ for Anderson are an experience of memorisation: ‘My performances and sculptures are strategies for remembering’. The woven objects resemble relics and appear to be ‘mummified’ in accordance with the ancient Egyptian embalming process, like Time capsules, and without nostalgia, they represent a fixed moment in time. These mummified objects are offering a vision of a changing world, an archaeology of the present.
Digital age
Permanently immersed in millions informations that machines 'memorize for us’. Anderson responds to the idea that our memories might become disembodied, live exclusively ‘online’ and questions the ‘how’ and ‘what’ to remember. To do so she has developed a process of movements around the objects[3] and expressed strong interests between Art and Science, Colliding Worlds: Hans Ulrich Obrist and Martin Rees.[4]
The Traveling Studio
In September 2012, Anderson founded Alice Anderson's Traveling Studio after a debut performance at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. Set-up as a performance lab, the Traveling Studio is defined as an ‘itinerant space' containing, a factory (studio), a store with its ongoing collection (done with guests performers or public), a digital archive, an exhibition space inviting curators, historians, scientists to establish connections between people, worlds and communities that questions objects witnessing our time. If the word 'Factory', evokes Andy Warhol’s factory, for Anderson it has to be understood as a place producing solidarity bound to objects. These objects are therefore intended to become contemporary ‘archeologies’. Addressing multiple aspects of our societies, the ritual objects have no aesthetic value, only that of the performance.[5]
The itinerant space creates everywhere the conditions for an immersive experience; black walls, intense lighting, repetitive movements and the sound of bobbins hitting the floor, engage each participant in a ritualistic action. These conditions produce strong collective expressions and result in a common creative force, similar to the collective vital energy between the people and objects, that reminds of ritual dances or qi science.
Without particular rules or methods, participants are enabled to contribute to a collective sculpture. Utilising copper wire, each participant must formulate their own gestures around their object, they also must realise individual understandings of those actions. Small objects generate an intense concentration, resulting in faster motions. Whilst larger objects demand slower movements and collaboration with others. In both cases, the performative objects are ‘magically charged’. They carry the collective energy and the identity of each participant. Objects produced collectively are authored by the 'invited performers' with their names and details.[6]
In 2013, Alice Anderson sculptures were featured at the 55th Venice Biennale. In 2014, Anderson's work has been shown alongside Louise Bourgeois, Isa Genzken, Tracey Emin, Helen Chadwick, and Mona Hatoum.[7] Parallels have also been drawn between Anderson and the Post Minimalism movement.
Further reading
- James Putnam, "Alice Anderson: From Dance to Sculpture" (RM, London), 2013
- Françoise Mamie, "Alice Anderson, Performing Life" (Villa Bernasconi), 2013
External links
- (Alice Anderson's Traveling Studio / Crystal Time Units)
- (Alice Anderson's Traveling Studio / Studio Objects)
- (Alice Anderson's Traveling Studio / Canoe)
- (Alice Anderson's Traveling Studio / Drawing Books)
- Alice Anderson's Travelling Studio / Movement Objects
References
- ↑ http://www.alice-anderson.org/bio_cv.html
- ↑ Artist Profile, All Visual Arts[full citation needed]
- ↑ http://www.alice-anderson.org/travfactory.html
- ↑ http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/events/colliding-worlds.aspx
- ↑ Darian Leader (2013), Performing Life, Villa Bernasconi[full citation needed]
- ↑ The Wellcome Collection, 2014[full citation needed]
- ↑ Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors (Oct-Feb 2014 Exhibition), Freud Museum
