Roger Hiorns

Roger Hiorns (1975, Birmingham, UK) lives and works in London. lives and works in London. His practice proposes new forms alongside the adaptation, re-use and transformation of existing objects — combining opposing materials such as ceramic and foam, metal and fire, car engines and crystals, steel and perfume, glass fibre and brain matter to create a persistent tension between the mobile and the static, the living and the dead. Central to his approach is the deliberate removal of the artist's hand: chemical, biological or pyrotechnic processes are set in motion and then left to determine the outcome themselves. As Hiorns has said of his method, he needed "a material to achieve a certain kind of detached activity, a system of nature like crystallisation." His practice inhabits the interstices between construction and destruction, the theological and the technological, engaging questions about authority, power and what object-making can meaningfully represent.

Hiorns came to international prominence with Seizure (2008), an Artangel commission in which he pumped 75,000 litres of copper sulphate solution into a condemned council flat in Elephant and Castle, South London, and sealed it for two months. When the liquid was drained, every surface, walls, floor, ceiling, bath, had been colonised by a deep growth of blue crystals, transforming the abandoned dwelling into an otherworldly cave. Described by The Guardian as destined to be remembered as one of the truly significant moments of modern British art, the work was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2009, later acquired by the Arts Council Collection, and is now permanently housed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Hiorns studied Fine Art Foundation at Bournville College, Birmingham (1991–1993), and received a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, London (1996).

Solo exhibitions include Pathways, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2022); Rudolfinum Gallery, Prague (2019); Centre PasquArt, Biel (2016–2017); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, United Kingdom (till 2023); Seizure, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2016); De Hallen, Haarlem (2015); Hayward Gallery, London (2014); Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2013); Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2012); The Art Institute of Chicago (2011); Turner Prize, Tate Britain, London (2010); Seizure, Harper Road, an Artangel/Jerwood Commission, London (2009); Glittering Ground, Camden Arts Centre, London (2008); UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2003); Art Now, Tate Britain, London (2003).

Group exhibitions include Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London (2022); The Summer of Love, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield (2021); The Encyclopedic Palace, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Arsenale, 55th Venice Biennale, Venice (2013); History Is Now, Hayward Gallery, London (2015); Blue Times, Kunsthalle Wi en, Vienna (2015); Making Colour, The National Gallery, London (2014); The Quick and the Dead, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2009); British Art Show 6, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2005); How to improve the World; 60 Years of British Art, Hayward Gallery, London (2004).

Works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem; Museum Voorlinden; and Caldic Collection.