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This Autumn, Somerset House showcases a new body of work by British artist and Somerset House Studios resident Hannah Perry, in her first major UK solo exhibition since 2015.
GUSH presents a captivating and poignant exhibition featuring large-scale dynamic sculpture, sound and film, in a candid and personal exploration of mental and emotional health in our contemporary, hyper-networked society.
Central to the exhibition is an immersive film, created using a custom rigged 360° camera built by Perry, that surrounds viewers with the contorted, continuously shifting movement of bodies. The film is narrated with fragmented spoken word that ebbs and flows with the images, summoning the highs and lows of both the everyday and life changing events, including the impact trauma and grief can have on our physical and mental state.
In an intensely personal yet universal exploration of the experience of loss, the installation marks the first time Perry has chosen to address the tragedy of the recent suicide of her best friend and artistic collaborator, Pete Morrow. Morrow’s diaristic writing and verse provide the basis for her moving inquiry into romance, psychosis and our relationship to death, along with the words of young people from London South East College, Plumstead, who Perry met through a series of workshops at Somerset House.
A compelling, original instrumental score written in collaboration with a cross-disciplinary ensemble of contemporary musicians, including award-winning composers Mica Levi, Coby Sey and London Contemporary Orchestra, accompanies these words and visual images, mirroring their rhythms and repetitions.
Elsewhere in the exhibition, Perry’s signature trope of car modification manifests in Rage Fluids, a pulsating audio sculpture incorporating stretched car body wrap and subwoofer speakers, enabling sound frequencies to create distorted patterns upon the mirrored surface of the sculpture, altering the viewer’s reflected self and surroundings.
Further new works include a site-specific hydraulic sculpture that suggests moments of violence, tenderness and intimacy through mechanised interaction. In two new wall-based works, Perry combines her distinctive silk screen printing technique for image and text with digital photographs, car lacquer and painting.
On 5 October, Perry debuts a new performance work created as a companion piece to the exhibition. Performers will execute movement choreographed by Perry, in relation to orchestral live music and spoken word.
A special late night opening of GUSH follows the performance on 5 October, as part of Somerset House Studios’ inaugural Annual General Meeting (AGM).
Hannah Perry: GUSH is an exhibition conceived by Somerset House, in partnership with Towner Art Gallery, where it will tour to in November 2018.
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GUSH
Exhibition
3 October – 4 November, River Rooms, Free
GUSH
Performance
5 October, 19.30
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING (AGM)
5 October, 19.00 – 00.00, Somerset House Studios, Early bird tickets £7 available until August 30
This October for the first time, Somerset House Studios opens its doors for the inaugural Annual General Meeting (AGM). For one night, the Studios’ artists welcome the public into their workspaces, offering visitors rare access to the underground residences at Somerset House for an evening of music, film and performance in a celebration London’s most dynamic cultural community. AGM offers late-night access to Hannah Perry’s new solo exhibition GUSH.
ABOUT HANNAH PERRY
Hannah Perry is a British artist working mainly in installation, sculpture print and video. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Arts, Perry uses a network of personal references to continuously generate and manipulate videos, sounds, images and objects, exploring intimate memory in a hyper-technological society. Guided by music, repetition and deceleration, Perry reveals youth and femininity as defined through images as well as beholder of desires.
Recent exhibitions include: ‘Rage Fluids,’ Künstlerhaus - Halle für Kunst & Medien, Austria (2018); ‘Viruses Worth Spreading,’ Arsenal Contemporary, New York (2017); ‘100 Problems’ at Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (2016); ‘I feel we think bad’ at Arsenal Montreal, Canada (2016); ‘Mercury Retrograde,’ Seventeen, London (2015); ‘You’re gonna be great’ at Jeanine Hofland, Amsterdam (2015); ‘Private settings: Art After the Internet’ at MOMA Warsaw, Poland (2014); ‘New Order II’ at Saatchi Gallery, London (2014); ‘A sense of things’ at Zabludowicz Collection, London (2014); ‘Stedelijk at Trouw’ at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2013); ‘Hannah Perry’ at Zabludowicz Collection, London (2012).
ABOUT SOMERSET HOUSE
Inspiring contemporary culture
One of the city’s most spectacular and well-loved spaces, Somerset House is a new kind of arts centre in the heart of London, designed for today’s audiences, artists and creatives – an inspirational community where contemporary culture is imagined, created and experienced.
From its 18th Century origins, Somerset House has played a central role in our society as a place where our culture and collective understanding of the world is shaped and defined. In 2000, it began its reinvention as a cultural powerhouse and home for arts and culture today, creating unique and stimulating experiences for the public, bringing them into direct contact with ideas from the greatest artists, makers and thinkers of our time. Our distinctive and dynamic year-round programme spans the contemporary arts in all its forms, from cutting-edge exhibitions and installations to annual festivals, seasonal events in the courtyard including Film4 Summer Screen, Summer Series and Skate, and an extensive learning and engagement programme.
As well as welcoming over 3million visitors annually, Somerset House houses the largest and most diverse creative communities in the country – from one-person start-ups to successful creative enterprises including MOBO, British Fashion Council, Dance Umbrella, Improbable Theatre, Hofesh Shechter Company, and Dartmouth Films.
In 2016 we launched Somerset House Studios – a new experimental workspace connecting artists, makers and thinkers with audiences. Currently housing over 80 artists and Makerversity (a community of over 250 emergent makers), the Studios are a platform for the development of new creative projects and collaboration, promoting work that pushes bold ideas, engages with urgent issues and pioneers new technologies. www.somersethouse.org.uk