Determined to lift my head from my desk in what has been an incredibly work-intensive month, I dived into the Barbican between meetings last week, and happened across an exhibition of London born Los Angeles based photographer Walead Beshty’s work in the Curve space.
I immediately recognised the work as cyanotypes, having dabbled in the medium myself. Objects are placed on UV-sensitive material, and sunlight reacts with the areas left exposed, turning them blue, leaving a ‘silhouette’ of the object in the material’s original colour.
But this was cyanotype on a scale I’d never seen it before, covering the wall of the gallery from floor to ceiling with more than 12,000 prints.
The prints were created using objects from Walead’s studio placed on a array of ‘found’ porous surfaces, such as newspaper and discarded cardboard, that has been coated with the UV-sensitive material.
The works were created over a year, from those made in October 2013 in LA to more recent pieces created in London over this summer, using materials he found at the Barbican during his month-long residency in September. They are presented in chronological order to quite breathtaking effect.
Walead Beshty in The Curve from Barbican Centre on Vimeo.
It was really interesting to be so immersed in one technique and one colour, and yet witness the almost infinite variety possible within such tight restrictions. An inspiring half-hour and well worth dragging myself away from my desk for.
The exhibition is on until 08 February 2015, and there are even cyantope making workshops taking place on Saturday 06 December at 11am, 12noon and 2pm.
Further reading for the especially geeky:
- out and about :: art house, designblok
- out and about :: openstudio designblok
- out and about :: superstudio, designblok
- out and about :: tent london, LDF14
