Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Ulster
'Site' Solo Exhibition, Baltic Mill
Including 'Construction Site' 2011 and '10000000000000000' (2012) subsequently exhibited at VOID gallery in Derry City of Culture.
‘Site’ Baltic, Gateshead (2012) was Wallinger’s first major British show for over ten years
'Site' comprises three new commissions made for the exhibition, and also the UK premiere of his 80-minute video 'Construction Site'.
'10000000000000000 (2012)' was installed in the same space with ‘The Other Wall’, 2012.
'Construction Site' depicts three builders erecting and then dismantling a scaffolding on a beach. Set against a backdrop of the sea and with the top of the structure aligning with its horizon, Wallinger draws attention to the construction of structures that are usually regarded as peripheral – and yet, are undeniably pivotal – to the construction of other structures. The idea is to highlight the construction of scaffolding itself, and arguably presents an interesting meditation on how we, the viewer, construct shapes and patterns and ideas out of things we see. Are the scaffolders actually “framing” the scene behind them, or are we? Or is Wallinger?
'10000000000000000 (2012)' which formed a giant chessboard covered in beach pebbles stretching out in front of the video projection. It catalogued and compared 65,536 stones, each occupying its own square on a gargantuan checkerboard — the simplest binary device for implying order. 'The Other Wall' (2012), in contrast, saw randomness contained in the form of a monumental brick wall. Each brick is numbered sequentially by hand prior to construction and then distributed with no order.
'Construction Site' was subsequently central to Wallinger’s first Irish solo exhibition at Void Gallery, a key event in Derry City of Culture. Exhibiting in Derry, at a time when a city attempts to ‘rewrite its history’, publicly through a cultural agenda, Wallinger’s approach to art-making and its critique of identity and self was particularly apt. BALTIC Bites video series provided further insights into the research process.
