Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is very pleased to present a special commission for The Box by Bedwyr Williams, sculptor, writer, film-maker and performance artist.
Williams creates dystopian scenarios, imbued with a wry sense of humour, in which ordinary people come face to face with the extreme or unexpected. Celebrating the surreal and obscure elements of human existence, he merges art and life with a satirical twist, often drawing from his own autobiographical experiences.
For this project, Williams has encased a blue, wooden spoon within The Box. The accompanying audio guide, written and recounted by the artist, takes the listener through a fictional narrative in which we discover that the spoon is the sole, remaining artifact from an explosion in a suburban, vegetarian restaurant. Alluding to numbered utensils given to customers after placing their order in a restaurant, Williams lends the tattered spoon a relic-like quality by using the box as a museum-style display case, employing his idiosyncratic style of humour in order to provide a subtle critique of the art object.
Bedwyr Williams (b. 1974) lives and works in Caemarfon, Wales. He won the Paul Hamlyn Award for the Visual Arts in 2005, was shortlisted for the Beck’s Futures prize in 2006 and represented Wales at Venice in 2005 and 2013. He has exhibited nationally and internationally in solo shows including Der Dinghy Koening, Center, Berlin (2008), My Bad, Ikon Gallery (2012), Echt, Tramway, Glasgow (2014) and Bedwyr Williams: Hotel 70 at MOSTYN, Wales. Group shows include Among the Living, ICA, London (2007), Ernste Tiere, Kunstverein Bonn (2011); SHOW, Jerwood Space, London (2011), Battle in Vain, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2011) and Performa 13, New Visual Art Performance Biennial, New York (2013). His work is in collections including Saatchi Gallery, London and National Museum of Wales.
Williams will have a solo show comprising the final part of his Echt project at Salzburger Kunstverein, Germany from 4 October to 30 November 2014.