Sam Taylor-Wood
Born 1967, London, England
Lives and works in London

Sam Taylor-Wood examines emotional isolation through highly choreographed photographic scenes. Five Revolutionary Seconds XIII was taken with a camera that panned 360 degrees around a room during a five-second exposure. While the image is a still photograph, the accompanying soundtrack records sounds and conversational fragments taped during the photo shoot. The people seen are the people heard, but their speech is out of character, the sounds not correlated to the image. The work may ask, Which reality is more valid, that which is heard or that which is seen?

Soliloquy I and Soliloquy V operate on multiple levels as well. Both consist of portraits positioned above a panoramic photo predella (an element common to Italian Renaissance altar paintings in which a narrative is depicted below a central image) that relates both aesthetically and thematically to the figure seen above, perhaps representing the inner reality of the person portrayed.

Sam Taylor-Wood, Soliloquy I, 1998, C-type color print, 6 ft. 10 3/4 in. x 8 ft. 5 in. (210.19 x 256.54 cm)

Sam Taylor-Wood, Soliloquy V and Five Revolutionary Seconds XIII, 1998 (installation view detail)

Sam Taylor-Wood, Five Revolutionary Seconds XIII and Soliloquy I, 1998 (installation view detail)

Sam Taylor-Wood responds to questions in the Artists of the Week section of this site.

Sam Taylor-Wood has been exhibiting her videos and photographs in group exhibitions since 1991 and had her first solo show in London in 1994. Important group exhibitions include Information Dienst, Kunsthalle, Stuttgart (1993); Don’t Look Now, Thread Waxing Space, New York (1994); Masculin/Féminin, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and Young British Artists (Project for General Release), 46th Venice Biennale (1995); Brilliant! New Art from London, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas (1995-96); Festival for Contemporary British Artists, Magazzini d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Prospect 96, Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Manifesta 1, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Event Horizon, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Contemporary British Art, Toyama Museum, Life/ Live, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Centro de Exposições do Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, and Full House, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (1996); Sam Taylor-Wood and Pierrick Sarin, Creux de l’Enfer, Centre d’art contemporain, Thiers, 47th Venice Biennale, Home Sweet Home, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Truce, SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico, Sensation, Royal Academy of Arts, London, Worldwide Video Festival, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Montreal Film Festival, Trade Routes: History and Geography. 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, and 5th International Istanbul Biennial (1997). She has had one-person shows in Stockholm and London, including exhibitions at White Cube/Jay Jopling, London (1995-96); Fundació “la Caixa,” Barcelona (1997); and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (1999).

Selected Further Reading
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Sam Taylor-Wood (1999). Exhibition brochure, text and interview by Olga M. Viso.

Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy. Sam Taylor-Wood (1998). Exhibition catalogue, texts by Bruce W. Ferguson, Nancy Spector, and Michael Bracewell, and interview by Germano Celant.

Fundació “la Caixa,” Barcelona, Spain. Sam Taylor-Wood: Five Revolutionary Seconds (1997). Exhibition catalogue, texts by Rosa Martínez and Gregor Muir.

Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland, and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark. Sam Taylor-Wood (1997). Exhibition catalogue, texts by Bernhard Bürgi, Kjeld Kjeldsen, Waldemar Januszczak, and Will Self.

Chisenhale Gallery, Sunderland, England, and Jay Jopling, London. Sam Taylor-Wood (1996). Exhibition catalogue, texts by Michael O’Pray and Jake Chapman.