Jess Flood-Paddock, William Hunt and Matthew Darbyshire - Visual Arts
July to 24 October 2008
Jess Flood-Paddock, William Hunt and Matthew Darbyshire, who studied sculpture together 12 years ago at The Slade, have been commissioned to make work in relation to Sadler's Wells. Their collaboration centred on a conscious discussion of the space and function of Sadler's Wells, yet each of the artists has produced work that is formally distinct and separate. By making the public thoroughfare of the theatre a place for sculptural interaction each achieves a particularly strong physical relation to space. Conscious of the way the audience passes through, works have been situated throughout the space on each floor. So a level of site specificity about the work is also charged with a good deal of individual atmosphere. From the experiential power of William Hunt's mirror piece, through the apparently traditional sculptural presence of Flood-Paddock to the crisply charged, finely directed 'dance film' by Darbyshire, the work relates to the actuality of Sadler's Wells while still providing some sort of autonomous artistic escape.
What is something to do in a space? How is it to function? Flood-Paddock is unashamedly formal in the way she places her work. Yet the highly judged, expertly worked pieces she places in relation to each other on the eye-high see-through plinth have a playful, genial, anecdotal quality. Flood-Paddock uses reference and association; in a row of sculptural objects the balls Be Closer Knit are brightly coloured, heavy, the V is Vittgenstein, not victory, and America the furry shape is a touchingly soft edged sign, yet the individual weight of each piece is guaranteed. She arranges the plinth, in part in front of the window, near the movement from floor to floor through the space. Sculpture has, for decades, found itself fighting for self worth, yet Flood-Paddock is part of a recent generation who ignores accountability to place pieces with their own autonomy.
Will Hunt is a performance artist who plays at extending the moment of performance. The mirror piece, placed quite perfunctorily on and beside the main art wall sandwiches and extends the public space, to break the concentration of separate layers and floors. It makes a performance piece in which all, obviously, participate. He also shows a film Even As You See Me Now 2008 of a performance in which he enters a level of physically demanding, even painful, action. This performance plays on durational hell within a theatrically domestic interior space. The combination of the artist's own performance and the enormous physical intervention mirroring the architecture and people on other floors, shows how art and performance can literally tilt into theatre.
Matthew Darbyshire is a sculptor whose objects and films are equally bound by the context in which they are shown. He has created a film for Sadler's Wells which will be shown in a number of places and guises throughout the duration of the show. Le Chant du Rossignol is a music video made in homage to the symphonic poem written in 1917 by Igor Stravinsky, referred to as The Song of the Nightingale. Taken from sixteen existing mainstream feature films which have been broken down into the artists' own categories of sci-fi, robots, 'a better world' and street dance, then worked into a sort of mosaic of movement, the sense of joy and comprehension collapses, at times, into a dark, backwards, futuristic vision. All the way through, though, the underlying narrative of the music manages to persist, and the result is a tight, lyrical, touching sense.
Sacha Craddock May 2008
Sacha Craddock May 2008
Visual Art Opening times
Mon - Sat, 9am - 8.30pm
Free admission
Please note: Because of the multi purpose use of the function rooms and foyer spaces at Sadler's Wells, viewing may occasionally be restricted.
For further information about Visual Arts at Sadler's Wells, please contact Deann Frost on 020 7863 8034 or
deann.frost@sadlerswells.com