Gillian Wearing
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Gillian Wearing
CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
, RA (born 10 December 1963) is an English
conceptual artist Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional Aesthetics, aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes ca ...
, one of the
Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsm ...
, and winner of the 1997
Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
. In 2007 Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the
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 ...
in London. Her statue of the suffragist Millicent Fawcett stands in London's
Parliament Square Parliament Square is a square at the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster in central London. Laid out in the 19th century, it features a large open green area in the centre with trees to its west, and it contai ...
. From 5 November 2021 to 4 April 2022, the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
in New York City showed ''Gillian Wearing: Wearing Masks'', the first retrospective of Wearing's work in North America.


Early life

Wearing was born in 1963 in
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
, England."Gillian Wearing"
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Retrieved 20 November 2018.
She attended Dartmouth High School in
Great Barr Great Barr is now a large and loosely defined area to the north-west of Birmingham, England. The area was historically in Staffordshire, and the parts now in Birmingham were once known as Perry Barr, which is still the name of an adjacent Birmi ...
, Birmingham. She moved to
Chelsea, London Chelsea is an affluent area in west London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area. Chelsea histori ...
to study art at the
Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...
and
squatted Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...
in
Oval Mansions Oval Mansions are eight separate blocks of tenement housing in Kennington, south London. The blocks stand between the Oval cricket ground and the Oval Gasholders. After being occupied by one hundred squatters from 1983 until 2000 (notable resi ...
. In 1987 she attained a bachelor of technology degree in art and design and in 1990 she attained a BFA from
Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...
.


Art practice

Wearing is known for her method of documentation of everyday life through photography and video, concerning individual identity within the private and the public spaces, where Wearing blurs the line between reality and fiction. John Slyce has described Wearing's method of representation as "frame ngherself as she frames the other". Her work in photography and video at first appear like most other journalistic methods of documentation seen in television and documentaries, but after further examination it becomes apparent that they do not conform to mass-media conventions. Wearing's work reveals that the camera does not take a neutral stance towards its object, but is rather a powerful mass-media organ that breaks down the divide between public and private. In the early 1990s, Wearing began putting together photography exhibitions where she worked with strangers. There is a recurring pattern in her work where she plays and mocks the idea of the artist as anthropologist, but her anthropological activities do not focus on discovering a foreign culture but instead challenges what we thought we already knew. Wearing sees that
Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
"attempts to compress human subjectivity into scientific objectivity". As John Slyce puts it: “Gillian Wearing does not suffer the indignity of speaking for others.”. How Wearing approaches her subjects then is by inviting the individual to include their own articulation of thought into the picture within the space that she has provided, rather than an objective documentation. In an interview with Donna De Salvo, Wearing states: "For me, one of the biggest problems with pure documentary photography is how the photographer, like the artist, engineers something to look like a certain kind of social statement—for instance, you can make someone look miserable, when this is just one side, a nuance of their personality. They might just be looking away at something, but their expression could be read as showing a kind of depression in their overall behavior. I couldn't bear the idea of taking photographs of people without knowing".


''Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say'' (1992–1993)

In her piece ''Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say'' (1992–1993), Wearing made a series of portraits where she approaches strangers that she encounters on the street and asks them to write what they are thinking about on a white sheet of paper. Wearing enjoyed this method of photographing because "when they returned with something they had written, it challenged erown perception of them". The photographed subjects that are from different backgrounds become unified through this paper where 'all of a sudden you have to start re-appraising people.' The audience's fantasies of imposing their own interpretations onto these photographed subjects are challenged and redirected by the paper that they are holding. This exchange between Wearing and the people she photographs makes the interaction more conversational rather than typical documentation methods of portrait photography.


Mask

In Russel Ferguson's “Show Your Emotions” he draws Wearing's use of mask draws to an older tradition that runs back to at least as far as classical Greek tragedy: "One in which the mask functions not so much to substitute one identity for another as to obliterate the superficial aspects of physical appearance in order to reveal more fundamental truths". In ''Confess all on video. Don't worry you will be in disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian'' (1994) is a 30-minute long video where Wearing recruited strangers through posting an ad in Time out magazine and provided a space where participants would confess their terrors and fantasies to the camera, their identity protected by costume masks. The mask is a reoccurring device in Wearing's work and it functions as protection as well as an apparatus that empowers the wearer; by making their identities anonymous it allows them to express their identity without constraint. As the viewer, access to truth becomes dislocated. Wearing presents this fictitious nature of the work as a report. The use of masks also questions authenticity and how reality can be fabricated. as said by Doris Krystof: “Protected by masks, protected by their anonymity and protect by the free realm of art where their confessions are recorded but not judged, where there are no consequences to fear, no ideology or attempted appropriation to deal with, the participants could enjoy a sense of liberation and trust in their own voices.” ''Trauma'' (2000) is a further exploration of confessing with a mask. The eight participants confess their trauma and the mask that is given reflects the age when they suffered their trauma, with the intention of transporting the viewer back to "the defining moment in the wearer's lives". What's intriguing about this piece is that it seems like that it's not the first time that the participants have told their story because of how well rehearsed it looks. But that's not the case, it might be that they have been reciting the trauma that they have experienced in their heads over many years. In ''Homage to the woman with the bandaged face who I saw yesterday down Walworth Road'' (1995), Wearing covers her head with white bandages and walks around in public. This piece materialized after Wearing caught a glimpse of a woman she saw with a bandaged head while in her friend's car. Wearing initially wanted to ask for permission to film the woman, although she decided to cover her own face with bandages and reenact what she had seen instead. Her walk was documented discreetly from behind and there was a hidden camera installed inside of the mask, capturing onlookers' horrid reactions. Krystof Doris contextualizes Wearing's approach: “The relationship between observer and observed is first established, then reversed, but always recounted from the perspective of the artist.” In 2003-2006, Gillian Wearing recreated photographs of her relatives that were found in her family album. She created masks out of silicone of her mother, her father, her sister, her uncle, and a mask of herself with help from experts that were trained at Madam Tussauds in London. They start creating the mask in clay from a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional object. In an article for ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' she explains that the process takes four months per mask, and how at first "some people tried to direct me to use prosthetics, but I was adamant it had to be a mask, something that transforms me entirely, something that was not grotesque but real, like a trompe l'oeil". These expensive silicone masks deteriorate easily after use, turning the photo shoot into a performative act where the action is unrepeatable. This process becomes paradoxical because of the difficulties that are encountered while recreating these casual snapshots. This work references into the canonical work in the history of photography of
Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...
, though Wearing has shifted the focus to exploring her own persona and its underlying relationships as a social construct. The works in Album then do not necessarily put the family members as the main focus; rather they capture Wearing's engagement with the family members.


Turner Prize

"''60 Minutes Silence'' (1996)" is the piece that won Wearing the
Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
in 1997. Wearing used a fixed camera and the length of the pose was long in duration, which resulted in an awkward personal moment. At first the image appears like a backlit group portrait of British police officers but after further examination the slight movements that they make reveals that it is in fact a video. In Krystof Doris' text "Masks, Identity, and Performativity" he explains that the power relation between the viewer and the viewed (the police officers) are reversed due to the disciplining scenario that Wearing placed upon the group of police officers. The individuality of each member begins to assert itself as the recording goes on and the officers conclusively become “ordinary human beings”.


1990s

In the early 1990s, Wearing started putting together photography exhibitions that were based around the idea of photographing anonymous strangers in the street who she had asked to hold up a piece of paper with a message on it. Of these "confessional" pieces, Wearing stated, One of Wearing's first UK shows was held at the Chisenhale Gallery in east London, in June 1997. In 1997, Wearing won the Turner Prize and exhibited videos such as ''60 minutes silence'' which is a video of 26 uniformed police officers, but at first appears to be a photograph. Wearing said, "The piece is about authority, restraint, and control." She also exhibited ''Sacha and Mum'' showing emotions between a mother and daughter. Wearing described the piece as, "Things can not be finalized—- as far as emotions are concerned. They're always in turmoil and can go to two polar opposites."
Cornelia Parker Cornelia Ann Parker (born 14 July 1956) is an English visual artist, best known for her sculpture and installation art.Christine Borland and
Angela Bulloch Angela Bulloch (born 1966 in Rainy River, Ontario, Canada), is an artist who often works with sound and installation; she is recognised as one of the Young British Artists. Bulloch lives and works in Berlin. Life and career Bulloch studied at Go ...
were the other shortlisted artists. In the late 1990s, Wearing made a three-channel video called ''Drunk'' (1997-1999), for which she filmed a group of street drinkers who she had got to know outside her studio against the backdrop of a white photographic backdrop. The drinkers are shown in different scenes individually and in groups. They stagger around, fall over, bicker, fight, sleep and in the end one of the men stands against the backdrop and urinates.


2000s

In Wearing's ''Broad Street'' (2001), she documents the behavior of typical teenagers in British society who go out at night and drink large amounts of alcohol. Wearing shows teenagers partying at various clubs and bars along
Broad Street, Birmingham Broad Street is a major thoroughfare and popular Nightclub, nightspot centre in Birmingham City Centre, Central Birmingham, England. Traditionally, Broad Street was considered to be outside Birmingham City Centre, but as the city centre expanded ...
. Wearing follows these teenagers demonstrating how alcohol contributes to their loss of inhibitions, insecurities, and control. In 2003, Wearing caused controversy with her cover for ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
s G2 supplement, consisting solely of the handwritten words "Fuck
Cilla Black Priscilla Maria Veronica White (27 May 1943 – 1 August 2015), better known as Cilla Black, was an English singer, actress and television presenter. Championed by her friends the Beatles, Black began her career as a singer in 1963. Her ...
". The cover illustrated an article by Stuart Jeffries complaining about the cruelty of modern television. The themes of modern television were further explored in Wearing's project ''Family History'' (2006) commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, and accompanied by a publication on the project.


2010s

Wearing's 2010 show ''People (2005–2011)'' at
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is an art gallery founded by Tanya Bonakdar, located in both Chelsea in New York City and Los Angeles. Since its inception in 1994, the gallery has exhibited new work by contemporary artists in all media, including painting ...
included work ranging from video, to photographic portraiture, to installation and sculpture. ''Snapshot'' (2005) is a series of seven single-projection videos framed by a candy-colored array of plasma screens, each depicting different stages of the female life cycle—from the innocence of early childhood to old age. Wearing also released her first feature film in this year: ''Self Made''. Film theorist David Deamer writes that the film 'is a paradox. And it is the nature of the paradox that gives the film its power ..The paradox emerges indirectly, a consequence of the two modes of narration of the film. First mode: documentary. The participants – through their facilitator, Sam Rumbelow – explore the techniques of "the method", method acting, which will allow them to encounter themselves anew and so generate their own "self-made" film. In this way each participant goes on to star in their own short, which, while encompassed by director Gillian Wearing's documentary, appears as its own moment of narration. So, second mode: fiction'. Wearing was appointed
Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(OBE) in the
2011 Birthday Honours The Birthday Honours 2011 for the Commonwealth realms were announced on 11 June 2011 in the United Kingdom,United Kingdom: New Zealand,Blake Gopnik Blake Gopnik (born 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American art critic who has lived in New York City since 2011. He previously spent a decade as chief art critic of ''The Washington Post'', prior to which he was an arts editor and criti ...
's list "The 10 Most Important Artists of Today". In 2012, a major retrospective of her work was held at
Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...
,
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
(March–June 2012), which surveyed her career and premiered new films and sculptures."Gillian Wearing"
Whitechapel Gallery, Retrieved 20 November 2018.
The exhibition was organised with
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is the art collection of the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, in Düsseldorf. United by this institution are three different exhibition venues: the ''K20'' at Grabbeplatz, the ''K21'' in the ...
, Düsseldorf and supported by
Maja Hoffmann Maja Hoffmann (born 1956) is a Swiss art collector, art patron, documentary producer, impresario, and businesswoman. She is the founder and president of the LUMA Foundation. Early life and education Hoffmann is the granddaughter of the industria ...
, Vicky Hughes and John Smith, and Dr Naomi Milgrom AO. An accompanying monograph was published by
Ridinghouse Ridinghouse is a British book publisher specialising in art. Ridinghouse’s publications are distributed by Cornerhouse in the UK and Europe, and by RAM Publications + Distribution, Inc. in North America. Company history Ridinghouse was found ...
and included texts by curator Daniel Herrmann, Doris Krystof, Bernhart Schwenk and David Deamer. In 2013, Wearing showed her exhibit ''People: Selected Parkett Artists' Editions'' from 1984–2013 Parkett Space, Zurich,
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
(9 February-11 March 2013). On 30 October 2014 her sculpture '' A Real Birmingham Family'' was unveiled in front of the
Library of Birmingham A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
. On 24 April 2018, her statue of the suffragist Millicent Fawcett was unveiled in London's
Parliament Square Parliament Square is a square at the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster in central London. Laid out in the 19th century, it features a large open green area in the centre with trees to its west, and it contai ...
; it is the first statue of a woman in Parliament Square. This makes Wearing the first woman to create a statue that is in Parliament Square.


2020s

From November 5, 2021 to April 4, 2022, the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
in New York City is showing ''Gillian Wearing: Wearing Masks'', the first retrospective of Wearing's work in North America.


Personal life

Wearing lives and works in London with her partner, British artist
Michael Landy Michael Landy (born 1963) is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs). He is best known for the performance piece installation '' Break Down'' (2001), in which he destroyed all his possessions, and for the ''Art Bin'' project (2010) at the ...
.


Awards

*1997:
Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
for ''60 Minutes Silence'' (1996) *2007: Lifetime membership of the
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 *2016: Honorary Doctorate from
Birmingham City University Birmingham City University (abbrev. BCU) is a university in Birmingham, England. Initially established as the Birmingham College of Art with roots dating back to 1843, it was designated as a polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic in 1971 and gai ...
"Birmingham artist Gillian Wearing given top university honour"
Birmingham City University Birmingham City University (abbrev. BCU) is a university in Birmingham, England. Initially established as the Birmingham College of Art with roots dating back to 1843, it was designated as a polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic in 1971 and gai ...
. Accessed 7 October 2016


References


External links


Wearing interviewed by Matt Lippiatt for ''The Times''
* ttp://bombsite.com/issues/63/articles/2129 Wearing interviewed by Grady Turner for ''Bomb Magazine'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Wearing, Gillian 1963 births Living people Turner Prize winners Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts Artists from Birmingham, West Midlands British video artists Women video artists Photographers from Birmingham, West Midlands Royal Academicians Squatters Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English women photographers English contemporary artists 20th-century British women artists 21st-century British women artists 20th-century women photographers 21st-century women photographers