Artist Helen Pynor: Breath
date: Wednesday, May 25, 2011
time: 6 -7 pm
location: South Wing Garwood Lecture Theatre
University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT
(how to find it - please see at the bottom of the page)
(many apologies for the short notice!)
Abstract:
In her latest exhibition entitled ‘Breath’ Pynor takes a tour through
the chronicles of misfortune surrounding incidents of accidental
drowning in the Thames River. Using this historical and forensic
archive as a starting point, Pynor explores the conceptual and
metaphoric possibilities of the anatomical structures most intimately
linked to breathing, namely the lungs and heart, and their
relationships with cultural objects such as boats that, like lungs,
are sometimes fallible vessels for the containment of air in
water-borne mediums.
More broadly, ‘Breath’ explores an anatomically explicit language for
the representation of the interior human body, and the interior body’s
entanglements with personal, historical, and cultural narratives.
Pynor’s work takes up Susan Oyama’s proposition that ‘the biological
is fully historical, and the historical is fully biological’. This is
not to suggest that one process can be reduced to the other, but
rather to hint at the radical and deeply nuanced ‘interpenetration’ of
these processes, which renders the ‘nature-nurture’ distinction
defunct.
Pynor’s broader conceptual goal is the reconciliation of materialist
understandings of the human body as proposed within the sciences, and
the body as a culturally-constructed entity as understood with
cultural theory discourses.
‘Breath’ is showing at GV Art Gallery, 49 Chiltern Street London W1U
6LY 020 8408 9800
6 May-2 July
http://www.gvart.co.uk/
Biography:
Helen Pynor gained a BSc (Hons) in Biology at Macquarie University, a
BVA in Photography and Sculpture at Sydney College of the Arts, The
University of Sydney, and a PhD at Sydney College of Arts, The
University of Sydney. Her practice has included exhibitions,
residencies and public art commissions in Australia, Europe and Asia
and she has been the recipient of prestigious national awards in
Australia such as the 2009 RBS Emerging Artist Award and the 2008
Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award. Pynor has been
the recipient of a number of Australia Council for the Arts grants in
recent years and her work is held in public, corporate and private
collections. She is currently working on a major project exploring
organ transplantation with artist Peta Clancy. Pynor has recently
relocated to London.
www.helenpynor.com
How to find the Garwood Lecture Theatre:
Once you enter the main UCL gate at Gower Street, you will face the
Portico in the UCL quadrangle courtyard. Please take the right hand
side diagonal and walk to the right corner of the building. You will
see the brass table indicating South Wing. Enter the second entrance
door at the South Wing, and you will find the Garwood Lecture Theatre
on the first floor. There will be signs from the entrance that will
help you to find the exact location easily.
Tesla website: http://tesla.byethost10.com
Best wishes,
Gordana
Tesla Curator
www.gordananovakovic.net
How to find the Garwood Lecture Theatre:
Once you enter the main UCL gate at Gower Street, you will face the
Portico in the UCL quadrangle courtyard. Please take the right hand
side diagonal and walk to the right corner of the building. You will
see the brass table indicating South Wing. Enter the second entrance
door at the South Wing, and you will find the Garwood Lecture Theatre
on the first floor. There will be signs from the entrance that will
help you to find the exact location easily.
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