Tim Noble and Sue Webster in their London studio
On 4 October the British Museum in London will open an exhibition of major works by leading contemporary British artists paying tribute to the cultural significance of sculpture across the ages. In addition to works by Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley, Ron Mueck and Marc Quinn, Tim Noble and Sue Webster will be showing a new phantasmagoric silhouette work inspired by the surroundings of the British Museum's world-renowned Egyptian Sculpture Gallery. Dafydd Jones visited the artists in their Shoreditch studio earlier this month to photograph this new work in its final stages.
This and the other works in the exhibition - by Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley, Ron Mueck and Marc Quinn - will highlight the perennial potency of sculpture and remind visitors to the British Museum of the extraordinary unbroken history of this art form and its unique relationship to human history. 'Statuephilia' complements a major new television series on the history of sculpture, 'The Sculpture Diaries', broadcast on Channel 4. 'Statuephilia' has been selected by Sunday Times art critic and presenter of the 'Sculpture Diaries', Waldemar Januszczak, in association with the British Museum.
Each work will be sited in a different gallery within the Museum, located so as to create an arresting juxtaposition with the stunning works that make up the Museum's permanent collection. For over 250 years, the collection has been an inspiration for contemporary artists, providing a rare opportunity to view sculpture from as far a field as Mexico, Easter Island, Nigeria, Greece, North America, Polynesia, China and India. Henry Moore famously declared 'nine-tenths of my understanding and learning about sculpture came from the British Museum'. By providing a new context for outstanding examples of contemporary sculpture the project will facilitate visual dialogue with traditions from different eras and encourage the public to engage with them in novel ways.
Other works in 'Statuephilia':
Damien Hirst will commandeer the historic wall cases of the Enlightenment Gallery and fill them with 200 specially created skulls.
Antony Gormley's Case for an Angel I - a precursor to his most celebrated public sculpture, Angel of the North - will fill the entire Front Hall of the Museum.
Ron Mueck will show Mask II, his widely exhibited sleeping self-portrait, in the heart of the Living and Dying: Wellcome Trust Gallery with the Museum's monumental Maoi.
Marc Quinn's solid gold statue, Siren, of supermodel Kate Moss - icon of contemporary beauty and Aphrodite of our times - will find fitting setting at the centre of the Nereid Gallery, interacting with the great Greek beauties that surround it.
Noble and Webster's new phantasmagoric silhouette work inspired by the surroundings of the Museum's world-renowned Egyptian Sculpture Gallery.
Statuephilia
4 October - 25 January 2009
British Museum
London
)
)
)