|
|
||
 
|
|
|
Jane & Louise Wilson |
|
Video artists Jane
and Louise Wilson, who are identical twins, have created a multiscreen,
cinema-scale video installation that focuses on institutional architecture
and the collective fears and phobias it can carry. Their work explores how
the concept of power is made physically present in architectural design.
Gamma was filmed at Greenham Common, an American military base in
Berkshire, England, that housed cruise missiles during the Cold War.
Decommissioned in 1992, the base now lies deserted, its history captured
by the Wilsons in disturbing images that seem both documentary and
surreal. Moving through area after area of the site, the Wilsons’ camera
evokes a sense of oppression, paranoia, and terror imparted by the
everyday materials of military reality and the prospect of nuclear war.
Filmed in a style combining Hollywood movies, TV melodrama, news video,
surveillance footage, and film noir, Gamma sends the viewer into a
disorienting yet intensely absorbing realm.
Jane and Louise Wilson, Gamma, 1999, four-part video installation with sound, installation dimensions variable (installation view)
Jane and Louise Wilson, Gamma, 1999, four-part video installation with sound, installation dimensions variable (installation view) |
1992 Goldsmiths College, London, M.F.A. (Jane and Louise) Anton, Saul. “Jane and Louise Wilson.” art/text 63 (1998): 91-92. Wakefield, Neville. “Openings: Jane and Louise Wilson.” Artforum 37, no. 2 (October 1998): 112-13. Kunstverein Hannover, Germany, and Berliner Künstlerprogramm, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, Germany. Jane & Louise Wilson: Stasi City (1997). Exhibition catalogue, text by Paolo Colombo and Elizabeth Johns; interview by Raimund Kummer. Hilty, Greg. “Greg Hilty on Jane and Louise Wilson.” Frieze, no. 18 (September/ October 1994): 40-43. |
Jane
and Louise Wilson's video installations and photographs have been included
in numerous group exhibitions since 1992, including NowHere, Louisiana Museum
of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Auto Reverse 2, Le Magasin, Grenoble, and
Attitude Adjustment, 5th New York Video Festival, Lincoln Center (1996);
Hyperamnesiac Fabulations, Power Plant, Toronto, and Pictura
Britannica, which traveled
to Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide,
and City Gallery, Wellington (1997); and Spectacular Optical, Thread Waxing
Space, New York (1998). Their video installation Stasi City toured to Kunstverein
Hannover, Kunstraum Munich, Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Geneva,
and Kunstwerke, Berlin (1997), and to 303 Gallery, New York (1998). Their
work has also been presented at Serpentine Gallery, London (1999). The 1999
Carnegie International is the first United States presentation of Gamma,
which premiered at Lisson Gallery, London (1999).