JANET CARDIFF AND GEORGE BURES MILLER: THE HOUSE OF BOOKS HAS NO WINDOWS
15 OCTOBER 2008 - 18 JANUARY 2009
Press View: Tuesday 14 October, 11am – 1pm
‘Making art for us is quite often an intuitive playful state starting from reflections of our subconscious and the world around us. We let the work make itself and follow it through its passage of changes…time plays with our subconscious and our dreams. We try to make works that reflect this magical state,’ Janet Cardiff.
Modern Art Oxford presents a major new exhibition of the work of internationally acclaimed artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. The artists are known for their immersive installations involving sound, images and sculptural environments that engage the viewer’s senses in the creation of alternative realities. The artists' use of sound as a transportative medium has been described as ‘hypnotic, sensually lush and deeply pleasurable.’
Filling all five galleries at Modern Art Oxford, the exhibition present seven installations by Cardiff and Miller not previously exhibited in the UK.
The exhibition spans the artists’ career, and includes their early installation Dark Pool (1995), in which a simple doorway in the gallery walls leads into an elaborate assemblage of furniture, carpets, books, empty dishes and mechanical paraphernalia. As viewers move through the installation, they activate fragments of sound, eavesdropping on music, echoes of stories and snatches of dialogue that tell the enigmatic story of the work’s title.
Recent works include the spectacular Opera for a Small Room (2005), in which the life of an imaginary opera lover is performed by an orchestra of record players and some 2,000 records, and The Killing Machine (2007) is a theatrical meditation on capital punishment, inspired by Franz Kafka’s In the Penal Colony.
The newest work, The House Of Books Has No Windows (2008), from which the exhibition takes its title, is a silent architecture of words and stories based on one of the artists’ previously unrealised projects.
The House of Books Has No Windows is organised in collaboration with The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh.
Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP. Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm, Sunday 12pm to 5pm, Closed Mondays. Admission Free. For further details please visit www.modernartoxford.org.uk or call 01865 722733.
ENDS
For further information and images please contact Sara Dewsbery, Press and Marketing Officer on 01865 813813, sara.dewsbery@modernartoxford.org.uk
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. Janet Cardiff was born in Brussels, Ontario, Canada in 1957. George Bures Miller was born in 1960 in Vegreville, Alberta, Canada. They both live and work in Berlin, Germany, and Grindrod, British Columbia, Canada.
2. A fully-illustrated two-volume publication produced by The Fruitmarket Gallery and Modern Art Oxford accompanies the exhibition, which acts both as a catalogue to the exhibition and a compendium of notes and drawings for as yet unrealised works.
3. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller will be in conversation with Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Chief Curator, Castello di Rivoli and Artistic Director of the 2008 Biennale of Sydney on 14 October, 5-6pm. Booking essential on 01865 813800.
4. A programme of events has been organised to complement the exhibition, including film screenings, free lunchtime and Saturday tours by Andrea Tarsia, Head of Exhibitions and Projects at Whitechapel; Dawn Scarfe, visual artist and composer and Jem Finer, artist and musician; activities for families and children, and late night openings. For details visit www.modernartoxford.org.uk
5. The House Of Books Has No Windows, (2008), was commissioned by Modern Art Oxford and The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh with the support of Outset Contemporary Art Fund.
6. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller are currently exhibiting their new work, The Murder of Crows (2008), at the 2008 Biennale of Sydney, 18 June – 7 September.
Exhibition supported by: The Henry Moore Foundation, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, International Cultural Relations Division at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT) and The Canada House Arts Trust.