PRESS RELEASE
ROGER HIORNS
Nekyia
January 19 – March 9, 2019
Opening January 19, 5 - 7 pm
Annet Gelink Gallery is proud to present a series of works by Roger Hiorns (1975, Birmingham, GB) in The Bakery.
On view are several ‘wall works’ made of various materials such as bronze, painted plaster, aluminium, wood and plastic.
Hiorns is never too pronounced about the origin of his work - often challenging the audience but also questioning himself. In ancient Greek culture and literature, a ‘Nekyia’ is a ‘right by which ghosts were called up and questioned about the future’ but it’s also a concept used by philosopher C.G. Jung as part of his analytical psychology. For him the ‘Nekyia’ represents the introversion of the conscious mind into the deeper layers of the unconscious – or more simply put; a journey of restoration for the human psyche.
Throughout his practice Hiorns has been reconsidering the physical form and the attributes of ‘Being’. He sees his human research as a constant and ongoing theme in his work. His unique figurative exploration is in illustrating or abstracting the body and with it, its de-ego-isation, subtly looking for new models of representation. By not rendering the body in the literal sense, within a figurative art tradition. The conditions of Being, its essence, the conditions of a life in the process of being lived, is of course, a complicated entity, there are no set conditions of analysis to successfully pin down Being.
In the works on view in The Bakery the ideas of sex and sexuality are also strongly present and for Hiorns, the process of Nekyia and the process of sex can be aligned.
As Hiorns says: “The body, it sets new challenges of how it it can be represented, a challenge that is moveable and porous. Within the progressive directions of sex, through a direct action of enacted upon sexuality, a new brand of idealism emerges, a movement forward towards the future.”
Roger Hiorns studied at Goldsmiths College in London. Some of solo exhibitions include Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2017), Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2016), Kunsthaus Pasquart in collaboration with Rudolfinum Gallery, Prague (2015), Corvi-Mora, London, (2015), Corvi-Mora, London, (2015), Luhring Augustine, New York (2014), The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, (2013), MIMA, Middlesbrough (2012), Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2010), The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (2010), the Tate Britain, London (2010), the Camden Arts Centre, London (2007) and the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2003).
In 2009 he was nominated for the Turner Prize with his installation 'Seizure', commissioned by Artangel. Hiorns also participated in several group exhibitions amongst others at the Hayward Gallery, London (2015), Colombus Museum of Art in Ohio, Ohio (2014), Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2014), Taipei Biennial, Taipei (2014), The National Gallery, London (2014), 55th Venice Biennale, Venice (2013), Marrakech Biennale 4th Biennale, Marrakech (2012) CAPC Musée d'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux (2011) and many other.