Jane and Louise WILSON
Wedded Rocks, 2021
Jane And Louise Wilson
I'd Walk with You, But Not with Her
6th of November - 30th of November 2021
Known for their theatrical installations combining photography, video and sculpture around environmental themes, Jane and Louise Wilson propose for the Sorbonne Artgallery a series which is the culmination of two residencies carried out in 2020, "I'd Walk With You But Not With Her », Which they create a dialogue with an older work carried out in Chernobyl in 2010.
The Wilson sisters are particularly interested in the impact of man on the planet, and in particular what happens when a place, perceived as inaccessible, becomes an object of desire and control, only to be abandoned to the forces of nature and the environment, which reclaim their rights and regenerate themselves.
Fascinated by the subconscious, these twin sisters create strange, hallucinatory and psychedelic images, provoking visual shocks made of contrasts of materials (mineral / organic) and environments (land / sea), mixing the beauty of nature with the abandoned architecture and the chaos of some sadly historic sites.
This artist duo, which was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1999, has since been exhibited in the largest museums in the world (Metropolitan Museum, Getty, Tate, etc.).
'Atomgrad, Nature Abhors a Vacuum II, IV, V' 2010
These large-scale photographs reveal abandoned interiors and facilities in Pripyat, the Ukrainian city built in the 1970s to house workers at the Chernobyl plant, and evacuated after the 1986 nuclear disaster. This city, now visited only by tourists and researchers, has become for more than 25 years a site of “black tourism” (visit to sites devastated by natural or man-made disasters).
Through the recurring motif of a stallion placed inside each of the interiors, our act of entering and photographing these spaces, of stopping time in this place now beyond human control, challenges the viewer. Photographs encourage us to look to the past, into empty spaces created by man, but the standards (a means of measurement that has now fallen into disuse, just like the buildings themselves) play with the notions of interpretation and memory on the material fact, on what is recorded, measured, articulated and analyzed. "
I'D Walk With You But Not With Her
I'd Walk With You But Not With Her, Jane and Louise Wilson
I'd Walk with You but Not with Her
“This series was produced during two artist residencies in protected sites: Gapado Island, in South Korea, and the city of lse, in Japan.
The contemporary construction of the two sites is now strongly focused on preserving the environment, maintaining sustainable ecosystems and tourism which in the past had long focused on the harvest and sale of seafood. 3 months we lived alongside the Haenyo, who just like the Amu in Japan, live from a sustainable practice of fishing and collective work. This illustrates the sorority bond on which their survival depends; when they are together, they share everything. The photographic works of the two residences capture the natural materiality of giant lava stones, bearers of a divine mysticism within the local culture. We wanted to mix sea urchins and shells on piles of lava stones and scarecrows on the surface of the architecture of the sanctuary, to merge discovery with inaccessibility, reverie with disappearance. "
You need to present the invitation when visiting the exhibition.
