Twenty Six Things
9 May 2008
A film by Marion Coutts, Wellcome Collection, 29 May-29 June 2008
'Twenty Six Things': 29 May-29 June
Private view: 28 May (contact Mike Findlay for details)
Venue: Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE
Admission free
Gallery opening times: Tues.-Wed., Fri.-Sat.: 10.00-18.00; Thurs.: 10.00-22.00
Sun: 11.00-18.00. Closed Mon. (except bank holidays: 10.00-18.00).
'Twenty Six Things' is a study in forms of attention. It is a cinematic still-life, a classic tabletop, emphasizing the tactility and luminosity of its objects. The succession of changing scenes invites the viewer to ‘fix’ visually each new shift in the composition. Pattern recognition, naming the unfamiliar, visualisation and sleight of hand all come into play.
The film is accompanied by an eerie suite of notes played on musical glasses, suggesting another (unseen) set of objects on a table, activated by touch, their differences audible in pitch and timbre.
'Twenty Six Things' explores common concerns in Marion Coutts’ work: the relationship between sculpture and film, and the generation of meaning in visual perception, through effects of repetition, interval, and pattern.
The project has developed through an invited period of research into the Wellcome archive and reflects the richness of the collection. Wellcome’s objects are often displayed thematically, to illustrate a particular topic. In 'Twenty Six Things', the objects are unidentified, linked only by their shared existence in this highly miscellaneous collection, and selected for their presence, texture and shape. An archive can only operate when everything is known and catalogued. It requires things to stay in place. The objects in 'Twenty Six Things' are both static and mobile; their movement is covert.
'Twenty Six Things' was shot on 16mm, directed by Marion Coutts. The director of photography was Belinda Parsons, assisted by Ed Hume Smith. Audio by the Amsterdam-based musician and composer Andy Moor.
Marion Coutts works in sculpture, film and video. Recent exhibitions have included 'To Be Continued…' at Helsinki Kunsthalle, 'Responding to Rome' at The Estorick Collection, The New Art Centre, and Chisenhale Gallery. In 2003-04 she held the Kettle's Yard Fellowshipat St John's College, Cambridge, and in 2001 the Momart Fellowship at Tate Liverpool. She lives and works in London, lectures at Goldsmiths College and is a Research Fellow at Norwich School of Art and Design.
Media enquiries
Mike Findlay, Wellcome Trust Media Office
T +44 (0)20 7611 8612
E
m.findlay@wellcome.ac.uk
Notes for editors
The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending over £650 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing.
Our former headquarters, the Wellcome Building on London's Euston Road, has been redesigned by Hopkins Architects to become a new £30 million public venue. Free to all, Wellcome Collection explores the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future. The building comprises three galleries, a public events space, the Wellcome Library, a café, a bookshop, conference facilities and a members' club. Since opening in June 2007, Wellcome Collection has exceeded expectations with audience figures reaching over a quarter of a million in less than one year.