Double Vision

For the past decade, the Young British Art [YBA] has been the focus of international acclaim. Celebrated world-wide and constantly reinventing itself, it shows no signs of running out of steam. Yet ›Double Vision‹ goes beyond the by now familiar YBA-formula: the fourteen artists selected here present a wider, cross-generational section of Britain’s artistic landscape, and all of them have one thing in common: they all spent time living and working in Germany, mainly in Berlin, as guests of the DAAD Künstlerprogramm. Their stay there – whether just for a few month or for a whole year – always created a fruitful dialogue between the artist and the adopted city, unleashing new inspirational energies and equipping them with an invaluable, ›binary‹ vision, thereby often leaving an indelible mark on their work. The selection includes works that relate directly (Dean, Doherty, Willats) or obliquely (Burgin, Collishaw) to German locations and events, yet immediately transcend this starting point towards an universal experience. Moreover, a large part of the show consists of works that betray these links in a less obvious way, being testimony to ideas and inspirations first developed or consolidated whilst living abroad. Many of the artists will be showing new or recent work that has not been widely exposed. Damien Hirst’s ongoing essay on vanity and death here takes the form of a large wall-cabinet, ›Stripteaser‹ , containing skeletons and surgical instruments; it will be juxtaposed with a sound piece by Douglas Gordon, ›What You Want Me to Say‹ , in which the artist’s murmured declarations of love are emitted from 12 loudspeakers on the floor. Known for his austere photo-text pieces, Victor Burgin will be represented by a sumptuous new film that takes its cue from a fateful encounter between Friedrich Nietzsche and Lou Andreas Salome in Leipzig (though we never see this place in the film); Tacita Dean is showing her new film ›Fernsehturm‹ , a mesmerising birds eye view of sky and cityscape, shot from Berlin’s television tower. Based on footage filmed at the Berlin Zoo, Mat Collishaw’s intricate new video installation is placed inside a tent. Steve McQueen will show his ›Five Easy Pieces‹ , a compelling exercise in sculptural cinematography. Stephen Willats will show seminal work from the 70s next to work made in the 90s; focussing on specific individuals living in Berlin towerblocks, both photo-series are exploring notions of identity under socially deprived circumstances. Like the work of Willats, Willie Doherty’s dark photographs of windswept staircases and occasionally lit windows taken at night in the streets of Berlin, are both specific and general, individual and universal. Vong Phaophanit’s eerie tower of shelves laden with slowly ›melting‹ and dripping lumps of rubber will be an extension of an installation first developed whilst living in Berlin. Hamilton’s new paintings of interiors are the most recent result of a preoccupation with a theme that goes back to the time he lived in Berlin in the 70s. Whiteread’s casts of the negative space behind or underneath a bookshelf, tables and a floor will make a ghostly echo of a room, whilst Wentworth’s large circle of assorted found plates is a more playful statement about memory and history. Spliced, cut and dissected, Richard Wilson’s new furniture sculptures will reveal what is normally hidden. Jane and Louise Wilson’s latest film ›Star City‹ continues their exploration of places of power: here we are taken inside at a Russian space training center near Moscow.