11 May – 24 November 2019
The British Council presents a brand new body of work by artist Cathy Wilkes for the British Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia.
Cathy Wilkes’ exhibition is bathed in natural Venetian daylight. The unadorned architecture of the British Pavilion provides the setting for an interconnected series of floor-bound sculptural installations, paintings and prints.
Through the measured process of creating her works, Wilkes experiments with all kinds of media and materials, and collects treasures and ingredients. Production – or what we see in the end – is the accumulation of all of these constituent parts. Her work recalls inchoate visions of interiors and places of loss, and meditates on the nature of love and the coexistence of life and death.
Her work also shows the disappearance and dematerialisation of life and the absence and anonymity of the author. Her works, which are all Untitled, render us all non-initiates; together we have equal capacity.
The exhibition is curated by Dr Zoé Whitley, Senior Curator at Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre. Dr Whitley is the first open-call curator to be selected by the British Council to work alongside the artist on a British Pavilion exhibition, presenting a significant international opportunity for mid-career curators.
