Syndicate: Anya Gallaccio / L+

[Jon Bewley and Simon Herbert <Locusplus@newart.demon.co.uk>]

L+ current project

two sisters

by Anya Gallaccio

A site specific public sculpture in Hull, UK.

'two sisters' is a column of  white melton wold chalk. It is six metres
high, two and a half metres in diameter and weighs seventy five tons.
Located in the littoral of the Humber, it rises from the silt bed by the
Minerva Pier at Hull's  waterfront. The sculpture is exposed at low tide
and virtually concealed at high tide. The action of the tidal flow of the
River Humber will continually modify its shape over the summer through a
gradual process of erosion.

Gallaccio observes:

Hull defies definition in the sense that the coastline is continually
shifting. A combination of factors impact on the coastal land mass: the
power of the North Sea; the conflicting energies of the tidal fresh and
salt waters, and extensive urbanisation. The silt is so mobile that the
Port Authorities continually chart and measure its movement, updating the
navigation charts every three months. The fluidity of the geography seems
to mirror the activity of the populace: a large transient student
population; a stream of visitors to and from the ferries to Holland and
Belgium and the commercial traffic that travels through Hull as part of the
E20 corridor from Dublin to St Petersburg.

It is the mutability of place and matter that fascinates Gallaccio, and is
reflected in her use of materials and her reluctance to fix or make
permanent an object to a site. Gallaccio has created a unique role for
herself as an artist: she has continually transformed public and private,
rural and urban, pristine and abandoned spaces  with temporary
installations that are both accessible and yet defy simple readings.

These include the covering of vast surfaces with chocolate that changed
from brown to iridescent green through bacterial colonisation, the decay of
warehouse floors filled with slowly rotting oranges and the aromatic mass
of hundreds of thousands of roses. The juxtaposition of natural materials
in industrial quantities with inevitable, but barely perceptible, processes
transforms in turn our physical and emotional understanding of place.

Images documenting the fabrication, casting and placing of 'two sisters'
have just been put on our web site: www.locusplus.org.uk.

Slides available for press purposes.

This work is part of Artranspennine 98. An exhibition of 40 artworks in 30
locations across the UK from Liverpool to Hull. Details:
www.artranspennine.org.uk.

Other Locus+ events:

Stefan Gec's Natural History in Winnipeg at the Ukrainian Cultural and
Education Centre until August coinciding with an exhibition of his
multiples at Art Metropole in Toronto. Catalogue details:
artmet@interlog.com
Cornelia Hesse Honegger paintings open at the Walter Phillips Gallery in
Banff on August 6.
Just published by Black dog publishing, Occupational Hazard : Critical
Writing on Recent British Art. Referencing L+ and using images from the L+
archive. ISBN 0 - 952  1 773 - 8 - 2. Further details: ucftlil@ucl.ac.uk

Public presentations on the activities of Locus+:

Kunstlerhaus an Deich,  Bremen. June 13. t: 0421 500 897 f: 0421 593 337
Tate Gallery, Liverpool.  June 24. t: 44 (0)151 709 3223 f: 44 (0) 151 709 3122
Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff. August 8. t: (403) 762 6283 f: (403) 762 6665

Projects in development: Laura Vickerson, Jonty Semper, Richard Wilson and
Lloyd Gibson & Mark Little.

Locus+ is an arts organisation based Newcastle upon Tyne, England that
develops new strategies with visual artists for different contexts and
across formats.

Jon Bewley or Simon Herbert
Locus+
17, 3rd Fl Wards Building
31 - 39 High Bridge
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 1EW UK
t +44 191 233 1450
f +44  191 233 1451
e locusplus@newart.demon.co.uk
www.locusplus.org.uk