INFERNO

Elizabeth Price – at the Walker Art Center from December 8 through June 30, 2019 – Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

London-based artist Elizabeth Price (UK, b. 1966) creates richly layered, moving image works made specifically for gallery settings. Composed of a broad range of imagery sourced from analogue and digital photography, animation, and motion graphics, her works are often accompanied by scrolling text, narrated by a computerized voice and paired with music. Elizabeth Price is on display at the Walker Art Center from December 8 through June 30, 2019.

Conceived in response to the architecture and past history of the Walker’s gallery, this solo exhibition features two new moving image works—FELT TIPP and KOHL (both 2018)—marking the artist’s first commission for a US museum. Projected floor to ceiling at more than 15 feet, FELT TIPP focuses on design motifs of men’s neckties from the 1970s and ’80s with patterns that evoke electronic networks and digital systems. Exploring the tie as both a sign of professional distinction and a sexually charged object, the work weaves together narratives of early computer technologies in the workplace and the gendered distinctions of its workforce. In KOHL, four fictional characters tell stories related to coal: its link to ink, writing, and the archive as well as its uses as a source of fuel and a cosmetic. Seen together, Price’s new works take motifs of dress and body adornment to reflect upon the relationship between the material and digital, sites of labor, and markers of class.

Curator: Pavel Pyś with Jadine Collingwood

Image: Elizabeth Price KOHL (2018) Four projector video installation, Courtesy of the artist