United Visual Artists (UVA) is a London-based art practice founded in 2003 by British artist Matt Clark (b.1974). UVA's diverse body of work integrates new technologies with traditional media such as painting, sculpture, performance, and site-specific installation. The practice has an open and inclusive approach to collaboration. While Clark leads the UVA team, the plural use of the word "Artist" in its designation refers to the many collaborators with whom Clark works. Drawing from sources ranging from ancient philosophy to theoretical science, the practice explores the cultural frameworks and natural phenomena that shape our cognition, creating instruments that manipulate our perception and expose the relativity of our experiences. Rather than material objects, UVA's works are better understood as events in time, in which the performance of light, sound and movement unfolds. UVA has been commissioned internationally by institutions including the Barbican Curve Gallery, London, England;

Manchester International Festival The Manchester International Festival is a biennial international arts festival, with a specific focus on original new work, held in the English city of Manchester and run by Factory International. The festival is a biennial event, first taking ...

, Manchester, England;

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

, London, England;

Serpentine Gallery The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, ...

, London, England;

The Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glax ...

, London, England;

Towner Gallery Towner Art Gallery is located in Eastbourne, East Sussex, on the south coast of England. It hosts one of the most significant public art collections in the South of England and draws over 100,000 visitors a year. It was described by ITV News ...

, East Sussex, England;

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, London, England; YCAM,

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, and others. Previous group exhibitions include Blain, Southern London, England; Riflemaker London, England; Bryce Wolkowitz, New York; Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea; and

Power Station of Art The Power Station of Art is a contemporary art museum in Shanghai. Housed in a former power station, it is China's first state-run contemporary art museum. Converting the building cost $64 million which was paid for by the Shanghai government. ...

Shanghai, China. UVA has collaborated with artists including choreographer

Benjamin Millepied Benjamin Millepied (; born 10 June 1977) is a French dancer and choreographer, who has lived and worked in the United States since joining the New York City Ballet in 1995, where he became a soloist in 1998 and a principal in 2002. He has also ...

and the

Paris Opéra Ballet The Paris Opera Ballet () is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded a ...

, filmmaker

Adam Curtis Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker. Curtis began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of ''Pandora's Box (British TV series), ...

, and musicians

Massive Attack Massive Attack are an English trip hop collective formed in 1988 in Bristol by Robert "3D" Del Naja, Adrian "Tricky" Thaws, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. The debut Massive Attack album ''Blue Lines'' was release ...

Battles A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...

, and James Blake. Most recently UVA collaborated with Christopher Bailey for the Autumn/Winter 2018 fashion runway show at

Burberry Burberry is a British luxury fashion house established in 1856 by Thomas Burberry headquartered in London, England. It currently designs and distributes ready to wear, including trench coats (for which it is most famous), leather accessorie ...

Collections

UVA's work is represented in public and private collections including the Fondation Cartier, France and MONA, Australia. Public works are sited internationally in Toronto, Dubai, Philadelphia and London.

Notable works

Our Time (2016)

''Our Time'' is a large-scale installation consisting of 21 pendulums, each with two light sources that trace light paths across space and respond to sounds, echoes and prompts from within an intricately designed program. The work joins a series of kinetic sculptures that began with ''Momentum'' (2013), an installation designed as a "spatial instrument" that reveals the relationship between expectation and perception in physical space. The work seeks to investigate the subjective experience of the passing of time. "''How long is a moment? At what rate does time actually pass?''" Our Time was originally commissioned by Dark Mofo before being acquisitioned by MONA, Tasmania. The work was later used in Christopher Bailey's final runway show for

Momentum (2013)

''Momentum'' was originally commissioned by the

Barbican Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhi ...

for its unique 90m long Curve gallery. It was the first in a series of kinetic sculptures created by the studio. Using light, sound, and movement UVA transformed the Curve into a spatial instrument, installing a sequence of pendulum-like elements throughout the gallery to create an evolving composition of light and sound. The pendulums projected shadows and planes of light across the 6 metre-high walls and curved floor of the space. Visitors each had a unique experience of the work according to their movement, and the movement of the pendulums. Momentum is one of the gallery's most popular exhibitions to date with over 77,500 visitors, an average of 717 visitors per day.

Volume (2006)

UVA's large-scale installation Volume first appeared in the garden of London's V&A museum in 2006 and has since toured far as Hong Kong, Taiwan, St. Petersburg, Paris and Melbourne. The work consists of a field of 48 luminous, sound-emitting columns that respond to movement. Visitors are encouraged to weave a path through the sculpture, creating their own unique journey in light and music. Volume won a Yellow Pencil at the

D&AD Design and Art Direction (D&AD), formerly known as British Design and Art Direction, is a British educational organisation that was created in 1962 to promote excellence in design and advertising. Its main offices are in Spitalfields in London. I ...

awards and featured in the London Design Museum's "Design of the Year" show in 2008.

Selected works

*''Beholder'', commissioned by

Birmingham Open Media Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

gallery (2018) *''Spirit of the City'', commissioned by A/D/O (2018) *''Elements'', commissioned by A/D/O (2018) *''Flux painting'' (2017) *''New Dawn'' (2017) *''Etymologies'' (2017) *''A Distant View'' (2017) *''440Hz'' commissioned by MONA for

Dark Mofo Dark Mofo is the winter version of the MONA FOMA festival, also held in Tasmania. With many of its events taking place at night, it celebrates the darkness of the southern winter solstice and features many musical acts, large scale light insta ...

(2016) *''Musica Universalis'', commissioned by Day for Night Festival (2016) *''Message from the Unseen World'', curated by Future City commissioned by British Land for Paddington Central (2016) *''Heliostat'', commissioned by The Crown Estate for 7 Air St (2015) *''Principles of Motion'' (2014 - 2015) *''Parallels'' (2014) *''Blueprint'' (2014) *''Formation'', commissioned by Artwise for ''Here Today'' (2014) *''Momentum'', commissioned by the

for the Curve Gallery, London (2014) *''Continuum'' (2013) *''Fragment'', commissioned by the Chalhoub Group (2013) *''Vanishing Point'' (2012 - 2013) *''Always/Never'' (2012) *''Rien a Cacher rein a Craindre'' (2011) *''Linnaeus,'' commissioned by Artwise for the Capability Brown restaurant in Syon Park, London(2011) *''Canopy'', commissioned by Cadillac Fairview, Lanterra Developments, Maple Leaf Square (2010) *''Onward'', commissioned by the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

for the

Burlington Arcade Burlington Arcade is a covered shopping arcade in London, England, United Kingdom. It is long, parallel to and east of Bond Street from Piccadilly through to Burlington Gardens. It is one of the precursors of the mid-19th-century European sh ...

(2009) *''Array'', commissioned by Chuya Nakahara Memorial Museum (2008) *''Triptych,'' commissioned by onedotzero as a part of

Nuit Blanche Nuit Blanche () (White Night) is an annual all-night or night-time arts festival of a city. A Nuit Blanche typically has museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of the ...

(2007) *''Hereafter'' (2007) *''Mirror'' (2005) *''Monolith,'' commissioned by the V&A for the John Madejski garden (2005)

Selected collaborations

Bernie Krause Bernard L. Krause (born December 8, 1938) is an American musician and soundscape ecologist. In 1968, he founded Wild Sanctuary, an organization dedicated to the recording and archiving of natural soundscapes. Krause is an author, a bio-acoustici ...

, ''Great Animal Orchestra'', commissioned by Fondation Cartier (2016) * James Blake, '' The Colour in Anything, World Tour'' (2016) *

, ''Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward'' (2015) *

Sou Fujimoto is a Japanese architect. Born in Hokkaido in 1971, he graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1994, and established his own office, Sou Fujimoto Architects, in 2000. Noted for delicate light structures and permeable enclosures, Fujimoto desig ...

, Serpentine Pavilion Intervention commissioned by the

(2013) *

vs Adam Curtis (2013) * Nick Drake, ''High Arctic'', commissioned by the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United ...

(2011) * Scanner, ''Origin'', commissioned by The Creators Project New York (2011) *Mimbre, ''Echo'' (2011) *

, ''Tonto'' Music Video(2007) *

Mira Calix Chantal Francesca Passamonte (28 October 1969 – 25 March 2022), known professionally as Mira Calix ( ), was a South African-born, British-based audio and visual artist and musician signed to Warp Records. Although her earlier music is almost ...

, ''Chorus'' (2009) *Massive Attack, World Tours (2003-2018)

Personnel

* Matt Clark - Founder * Will Laslett - Head of Design and Development * Maximo Recio - Lead Designer * Willem Kempers - Designer * Lee Sampson - Designer Matt Clark founded UVA in 2003 together with Chris Bird and Ash Nehru. Around 2010, Chris and Ash turned their focus to D3 - a software tool originally developed for UVA projects, and at the end of 2017 they both moved on from UVA as directors to pursue their personal interests.

References

{{reflist

Collections

Notable works

Our Time (2016)

Momentum (2013)

Volume (2006)

Selected works

Selected collaborations

Personnel

References

External links