{"id":31625,"date":"2016-05-04T15:48:52","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T13:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=31625"},"modified":"2016-05-04T15:48:52","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T13:48:52","slug":"london-artist-reimagines-frieze-ny-as-huge-digestive-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/london-artist-reimagines-frieze-ny-as-huge-digestive-system\/","title":{"rendered":"London artist reimagines Frieze NY as huge digestive system"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"100% 100% OTHER FIBRES, Heather Phillipson<\/p>\n

 
\nFrieze<\/a> New York starts tomorrow and alongside the art fair extravaganza there\u2019s also Frieze Projects, which invite emerging artists to bring price tagless life to the site. Curated by Cecilia Alemani and taking place both inside the fair and around Randall\u2019s Island Park, 2016\u2019s projects include London-based artist Heather Phillipson and her multi-sensory objects. We spoke to the artist about reimagining the serpentine shape of the fair structure as a giant spinal chord, and how Gavin the police dog with post traumatic stress disorder influenced her work.
\nWhat interests you in using the serpentine shape of the fair?
\n<\/strong>The Frieze tent\u2019s semi-S shape struck me immediately as being like a huge, walk-in spinal cord, blown down on Randall\u2019s Island. It has an entrance at one end and an exit at the other \u2013 like passing through a digestive system. It also has these elongated, fabric \u2018fingers\u2019, as they\u2019re known, that stretch out from the tent onto the surrounding lawns. Long, licky things. So, for me, it\u2019s replete with bodily references.
\nThe spine is also fitting because, alongside the story of Gavin the police dog\u2019s PTSD, I was also reading \u2013 almost daily, at the time of thinking about my project \u2013 about the terror raids in Paris. There was a very perfunctorily reported story \u2013 of a spine being blasted out of a window and landing on a police car. I couldn\u2019t help but overlay this image onto the Frieze tent, which, in aerial shots, looks like it\u2019s been blown down onto the island. That image, and the flippancy of its reporting, came to haunt me.
\nSo, likewise, my work reappears throughout the fair. It\u2019s episodic \u2013 sequential \u2013 the dogs and body-parts keep coming back in different forms. The linear progression of the tent facilitates this \u2013 the forward movement, the possibility of punctuating \u2013 and puncturing \u2013 it. And there is something \u2013 not even metaphorical \u2013 about viewing the passage through the Frieze tent as a bodily conduit \u2013 it really is a site of clashing nervous systems, impulses, threat. Pleasure too, of course \u2013 but that\u2019s what makes the experience complex, and what my work tries, simultaneously, to hold in (precarious) balance.
\n <\/p>\n

\"100% 100% OTHER FIBRES, Heather Phillipson<\/p>\n

\"Heather 100% OTHER FIBRES, Heather Phillipson<\/p>\n

How does working in New York compare with working in east London?
\n<\/strong>Actually, a lot of the thinking and making for this project has happened in my studio in east London. This is useful for me \u2013 to be distant from the place in which I am, ultimately, working, but to hold an image of it in my mind \u2013 to get as messy as possible with it in the virtual realm. It emboldens me to hit it harder, in readiness for the physical encounter, which is always a lot leakier, harder to frame.
\nThat said, I\u2019m familiar with New York, and this is equally important, for different reasons. For one thing, my experience of the role of dogs in New York \u2013 their diversity and ubiquity \u2013\u00a0\u00a0that\u2019s been informative.
\nThen there\u2019s the work that happens on site \u2013 I\u2019ve been working, long-distance, with the Frieze team, to begin to realise the project ready for my arrival, so the \u201creal\u2019 stuff\u201d \u2013 all the unpredictable, ungraspable bits \u2013 will really happen when we get inside the tent.
\nWhat\u2019s next for you after Frieze?
\n<\/strong>Imminently, I\u2019m preparing for an exhibition of a commission for the Arts Council Collection\u2019s 70th<\/sup>\u00a0Anniversary \u2013 another sprawling, multi-part video and sculptural work that\u2019s going to be shown at Plymouth Arts Centre in the UK in June. After that \u2013 or, more accurately, simultaneously \u2013 I\u2019m preparing for the 32nd<\/sup>\u00a0S\u00e3o\u00a0Paulo Biennale, in Brazil, in September.
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