Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Derby
'Sleepless'
Solo Exhibition, Monograph
Wolverhampton Art Gallery & Museum are independent publishers, who published the monograph of over 100 pages, October 2009. The publication documented this large-scale exhibition and other related art projects made in recent years. The book can be seen as a retrospective review and study of Lahav’s work since 1995.
‘Sleepless’ - was funded by Art Council West Midlands, Wolverhampton Art Gallery. The value of this project is over £26,000
Reviews:
2010 January – BBC- The Midland news
2009.17th October - WCR FM radio cover of the show.
2009.17th October - The Guardian, Preview Exhibition.
Sleepless Monograph (126pp) essay by: Kate Pryor Williams, Carol Mavor & Mark Durden - ISBN ¬ 978-0-947642-27-.
Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Museum
Number of Pieces: 75
Media: Mixed media
Opening date: 10/2009
Closing date: 01/2010
Derby Museum and Art gallery
Opening date: 01/2010
Closing date: 03/2010
Other relevant details:
Nerina Wilter Gallery (Home from Home), Munich, Germany.
Opening date: 7/2011
Closing date: 9/2011
‘Sleepless’ was an exhibition of four large sculptures, three video installations, twenty-one photographs and six drawings. ‘Sleepless’ was commissioned for the two main Galleries at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery & Museum, followed by a solo show at the Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Key elements of the ‘Sleepless’ exhibition - 9 images and one large glass installation, went on to be exhibited in July 2011 at the Nerina Wilter Gallery, Munich as part of ‘Short stories’. ‘Short stories’ was a mixed-media show exhibiting new work alongside previous work - juxtaposing photography with glass installations.
The central theme throughout this exhibition is the individual’s relationship to society. The installations and photographic work critically explore identity as a social construction and society’s influence on the roles we play within it. The artwork features a common aesthetic throughout. A calm atmosphere achieved through a language of minimalistic forms and a white-base with a subdued colour palette hiding an underlying tension. The dialogue between presence and absence, between void and unspecified meaning, disclosure and scrutiny leads the observer into the depth of multiple meanings.
Lahav’s research investigates the contemporary city within a context of modernist architecture. ‘Sleepless’, functions as a multi-media installation; a collage of mixed media fragments, of texture, colour and form, architecturally placed to set up critical juxtapositions within the ever dominant pure white walls of the white cube gallery space. Lahav translates these juxtapositions through a minimalist aesthetic which is then shared in the gallery space. The work is situated in the autobiographical and modernist conceptions characterised by a strong visual identity with common elements that include a central composition often depicting a single object or figure and concerned with material and texture using a limited colour palette, white, black and grey but the dominant use of white is striking.
