Tim Noble and Sue Webster

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Tim Noble and Sue Webster
in their studio in 2011

Tim Noble (* 1966) and Sue Webster (* 1967) are British artists who have worked together since 1996 and are commonly associated with the post-YBA generation of artists.

Earlier career

Tim Noble attended a foundation course at Cheltenham Art College (now University of Gloucester) and Sue Webster at Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University). They met in 1986 as an art student at Nottingham Trent University . Common interests and their taste in music only made them good friends at first.

After graduating in 1989, they both moved to Bradford , West Yorkshire. From 1990 to 1992 they worked in the sculpting studio in Dean Clough. The time in Bradford had a profound effect on her artistic development and was a source of inspiration for many early works. Tim Noble and Sue Webster later moved to London, where Noble began a Masters Degree in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art . The couple's entry into the London art world began. Her first solo exhibition, British Rubbish , took place at the Independent Art Space (ISA) in 1996. This led to participation in other exhibitions, including Fool's Rain in 1996 at the ICA , where they showed their first light sculpture, Excessive Sensual Indulgence .

While they were earning their living working for the artists Gilbert and George in 1997, they developed their visual language: They experimented with collections of personal items and household waste. This resulted in her first shadow sculpture Miss Understood & Mr. Meanor . This work became part of her solo exhibition Home Chance, in her own London studio on Rivington Street. The exhibition attracted large audiences, including Charles Saatchi , who bought two of the three works on display .

Works by the artists were included in the exhibitions Statuephilia - Contemporary Sculptors at the British Museum , 2008–2009 and in Apocalypse - Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art at the Royal Academy , 2000. Solo exhibitions in several galleries in London followed. Tim Noble and Sue Webster then exhibited in New York , Paris and Seoul. Her work is featured in public collections including the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Arken Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

In 2007 they were awarded the Arken Prize for their artistic achievements, and in 2009 they received an honorary doctorate from Nottingham Trent University , their former art school.

They are represented by the Gagosian Gallery and work with Blain | Southern and their Berlin gallery.

Work

Tim Noble and Sue Webster's early work can be divided into 'light work' and 'shadow work', although Webster does not see them entirely separately. She says:

“We let them run side by side. There are two sides to these works; the shining and the dark. In a way, it reflects the two personalities in us. "

Since their first collaboration, the influence of music on their art, especially punk rock , has been very important to them. Noble says:

“I think anything that is a bit like a rocket in the ass, anything that upsets the routine, the mundane things that shut your mind down, is a refreshing and good thing. Punk did it very successfully, he gave impulses directly and immediately to produce. "

Webster adds:

“In our work, we are always looking for something that takes our breath away. If that happens to us, then we've pushed it as far as we can. We like to look at all the possibilities to produce something - it can be very simple or very complicated. But we're only satisfied when we've both gone through everything really well. "

Sir Norman Rosenthal , the former exhibition secretary of the Royal Academy, writes:

“At the most immediate and important level, the work of [Tim] Noble and [Sue] Webster symbolizes an artist couple who are really infatuated and totally in love with each other. As artists, they only want to portray themselves, either surrounded by rubble or by pastiche of contemporary neon signs. An anti-aesthetic nastiness dominates the surface of their art. "

Shadow sculptures

The shadow sculptures consist of a variety of materials such as household waste, scrap and dead animals. These ensembles are transformed into apt self-portraits of the artists through sharp lighting. Commenting on her shadow work, Webster said: “ Our work is incredibly anti-social. There has to be total darkness in order to be able to give the light and then take it away again. ”

Her first shadow sculpture, Miss Understood and Mr Meanor , 1997, was created by experimenting with a pile of personal items and household waste. The silhouettes are created by lights that are aimed at lumps of rubbish and consist of broken sunglasses and old buttons for rock bands, among other things. In this particular work, the artists' heads are severed and impaled on stakes. The work, along with a number of other works from the Saatchi collection, was destroyed in a fire at the Momart art warehouse in 2004 .

With their shadow sculptures, they succeeded in merging the abstract and the representational - an endeavor that has been around people like Jackson Pollock , Willem de Kooning and Francis Bacon . This became even clearer with her second large shadow sculpture, Dirty White Trash (with Gulls) , in 1998. The innovative idea of Miss Understood and Mr Meanor has been expanded here. This work consists of a new type of self-portrait. It was formed from the artists' garbage from six months, from the remains of everything they needed to survive during that time. A single light source illuminates the piles of rubbish and casts a shadow portrait on the wall that contrasts sharply with the materials used: the artists, leaning back to back, with a glass of wine and a cigarette.

Jeffrey Deitch, director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, writes:

“'Dirty White Trash (with Gulls)' is a confluence of beauty and dirt, form and anti-form. It is a work of art made from the process of its own creation, an embodiment of formalistic logic. At the same time it is a negation of everything that formalism stands for. The artist is the focus of the work. It is deliberately entertaining and indulges in its own theatricality. "

Another work, British Wildlife , came about after Noble's father died in 2000. His taxidermy collection, consisting of forty-six birds, forty mammals and two stuffed fish, including a complete swan and even Tim's crow - a childhood pet - was processed here. The shadow of this mass of animals fittingly forms the busts of Tim and Sue in a pose of mourning. In September 2000 they were invited to take part in Apocalypse , the Royal Academy's follow-up exhibition to the infamous sensational show of 1997. Here they presented The Undesirables , consisting of a mountain of rubble from the vicinity of Tim and Sue's home, over which a silhouette of the artist hovers . The exhibition of a huge heap of rubbish in one of the Royal Academy's largest gallery spaces was intentionally radical and shocking - created to shake visitors' concept of art in its festivals.

In 2006 there was an exhibition of her work at the Freud Museum entitled Polymorphous Perverse . Black Narcissus , a sculpture made from black silicone casts of Webster's fingers and Noble's penis in various stages of arousal, was placed in Sigmund Freud's study next to a bust of Freud himself. When illuminated, the sculpture projects a double portrait of the artist in profile and shows how sexuality reflects our perception of reality. Another work, Scarlett , 2006 (see below - 'Other works (selection), and video under' Weblinks'), was a " work table with numerous bizarre mechanical toys that seem to be being created. A nightmarish arrangement of suppressed sexual and sadomasochistic fantasies and transgressions. "

Light sculptures

The light and shadow sculptures were created in parallel and consist of computer-controlled, constantly flashing lightbulbs, which often send out messages of love and hate simultaneously. The sculptures make reference to popular culture symbols of England and America, they are reminiscent of carnivals and signs that are typical of British working-class coastal regions, for Piccadilly Circus , for Las Vegas and Times Square . Like almost all of her works, many of the light sculptures are intentionally contradicting and are intended to create opposing feelings in the viewer. This is certainly the case with her early light sculpture Toxic Schizophrenia , 1997. The permanently flashing heart, pierced by a knife, combines a Christian symbol with a clichéd rock 'n' roll tattoo. As with the shadow sculptures, the work is pervaded by duality; it represents romance and pain, love and hate, friendship and alienation, the negative and the positive.

Similar contradictions resonate in the later work Sacrificial Heart from 2008: The three-dimensional and rotating version of Toxic Schizophrenia, like the earlier works, is both repulsive and strangely attractive. Toxic Schizophrenia (Hyper version) was her first permanent art in public space, unveiled in May 2009 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver.

Contradictions and irony abounded in the works of the Instant Gratification exhibition that Gagosian presented in Beverly Hills in 2001. Linked to the artists' previous trips to Las Vegas, the six-meter-long reissue of Forever from 1997 plays with traditional connotations of the word "Forever," and the "forever" flashing lights reinforce this idea.

With A Pair of Dollars , they attempted an ironic response to the art market and art fairs. Noble described the artwork as "vulgar" on purpose in order that it would express her displeasure with the system of the art market. In the meantime, however, due to the great success of the work, he had to admit the failure of his irony. Puny Undernourished Kid & Girlfriend from Hell are another return to earlier work. They are based on comic-like drawings that Noble and Webster had made of each other ten years earlier. On the large neon figures there are neon light tattoos with expletives influenced by punk rock .

Metal sculptures

The Crack from 2004 is one of a series of welded metal sculptures that at first glance seem like abstract works in the tradition of David Smith and Anthony Caro , although they actually function as an inversion of abstraction into figuration.

With its long, pillar-like shape, The Crack is possibly the artist's most difficult shadow work to decipher. Instead of being able to concentrate on black silhouettes on the wall, as with other works by Tim Noble and Sue Webster, the viewer has to focus his attention on the white area around the shadow. This then reveals the naked bodies of the artists positioned opposite one another. This challenge to perception is reminiscent of Ernst Gombrich's treatise on perception in his book “Art and Illusion”, published in 1960.

“At first glance, 'The Crack' shows an abstract form that is perhaps reminiscent of a heroic mountain landscape with cracks and ravines as by Clifford Still. And gradually we begin to see the naked profiles of our friends in full length, how they approach each other, how their nipples touch, as if they are about to make love for the millionth time again. "

- Norman Rosenthal

The New Barbarians

In 1997, commissioned Tim Noble and Sue Webster a sculptor from Madame Tussauds to help them make a life-size sculpture of himself as australopithecines to customize. The work is called The New Barbarians , is based on a diorama in the American Museum of Natural History in New York and shows a reconstruction of two ancestors of the human species. The artists produced a version of these figures with their own facial features. The sculptures are so isolated in the room as if it were infinite. Their hairlessness arouses contradicting associations; they could be the first or the last, cavemen, or the survivors of a nuclear disaster. In this way, the work continues the contradicting artist themes of transience and immortality. A year after starting work on The New Barbarians , the artists made a different version of the sculpture, called Masters of the Universe (1998-2000). She uses the same three-dimensional model as in the earlier work, but this time covered with hair.

Electric fountain

The more than 10 meter high Electric Fountain is made of steel, neon tubes and 3390 LED lamps. It was exhibited at Rockefeller Plaza in New York in February 2008. The monumental work is reminiscent of the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas, and similarly Toxic Schizophrenia (Hyper Version) , it refers to her first light sculpture, Excessive Sensual Indulgence . It shows a pop fountain, the cascading flashing lights of which create the impression of flowing water. Electric Fountain ( see video clip under 'Weblinks' below ) is an approach by artists to the world's oldest form of public art - the fountain. Webster says:

“Electric Fountain mimics the tradition of a monumental fountain found in public places around the world. But its magic lies in emulating water with light. "

The fountain embodies frequently present themes in the work of the duo and can be seen both as an homage to contemporary culture and as an ambiguous remark about consumer society.

The dirty house

In 2001 Tim Noble and Sue Webster bought a dilapidated early twentieth century furniture factory in London's East End, which they turned into their studio. The artists commissioned David Adjaye to design the building, which he named The Dirty House , referring to the material used in many of their works . The original brickwork was painted dark brown, provided with two rows of window openings and a “floating” roof that rises above the upper glazed level and the sunken terraces.

Trivia

Tim Noble and Sue Webster were married on June 7, 2008.

Interviews with Tim Noble and Sue Webster

items

Bibliography (selection)

  • Instant gratification. Text by Larry Johnson, The Beacon Press, 2001, ISBN 1-880154-64-1 .
  • Tim Noble and Sue Webster: The Joy of Sex. Texts by Mark Fletcher and Tina Kim, Kukje Gallery, 2005, ISBN 89-955477-4-X .
  • Wasted Youth Essays by Norman Rosenthal and Jeffrey Deitch, Rizzoli International Publications, 2006, ISBN 0-8478-2816-6 .
  • Polymorphous perverts. Texts by Linda Nochlin and James Putnam, Other Criteria, 2008, ISBN 978-1-904212-24-9 .
  • British Rubbish. 2011

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1] Trashed: A Post-YBA Couple's Collaborative Shadow Play. Village Voice, Nov. 18, 2003
  2. ↑ `` Wasted Youth '', New York: Rizzoli International Publications, US 2006 ISBN 0-8478-2816-6
  3. ↑ Jeffrey Deitch: "Black Magic" in "Wasted Youth" New York: Rizzoli 2009
  4. ↑ `` Wasted Youth '', New York: Rizzoli
  5. ↑ Deitch, Jeffrey “Black Magic” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli 2009
  6. ↑ `` Wasted Youth '', New York: Rizzoli 2006.
  7. ^ David Burrows: "British Rubbish" Variant, Issue, 1, 1996
  8. ↑ Brown, Neal Archived copy ( Memento of the original from August 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Frieze, October 1996 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.frieze.com
  9. ↑ Jeffrey Deitch: "Black Magic" in "Wasted Youth" New York: Rizzoli 2009
  10. ↑ Deitch, Jeffrey, “Black Magic” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli 2009
  11. ↑ [2] Blain | Southern website
  12. ↑ Deitch, Jeffrey, “Black Magic” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli 2009
  13. ↑ [3] BM doesn't need sculpture face-off to pull in visitors, Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, 2009
  14. ↑ Cumming, Laura “It's just hell, darling…” The Observer, September 24, 2000
  15. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 12, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The Evening Standard, April 5, 2004 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thisislondon.co.uk
  16. ^ [4] Art Knowledge News
  17. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Jeffrey Deitch Projects website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deitch.com
  18. ↑ [5] MoMA PS1 website
  19. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Triumph Gallery website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / triumph-gallery.com
  20. ↑ Blain | Southern Noble & WebsterCV
  21. ↑ `` Wasted Youth '', New York: Rizzoli US 2006 ISBN 0-8478-2816-6
  22. ^ [6] Isabella Blow graces the National Portrait Gallery - in the form of magpies, crows, a rattlesnake and a rat. Portrait of late fashion muse Isabella Blow uses stuffed animals to celebrate her 'gothic' image. Guardian, September 2010
  23. ↑ [7] National Portrait Gallery website
  24. ↑ [8] Arken Museum website
  25. ↑ [9] Guggenheim Museum website
  26. ↑ [10]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Arken Museum website, 2007@1@ 2Template: dead link / www.arken.dk  
  27. ↑ [11] Nottingham Trent University website, 2009
  28. ↑ Zenth, Torben “Interview: Tim Noble and Sue Webster” ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. March 21, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kopenhagen.dk
  29. ↑ Calder, Diane, “Review of Gagosian Show” ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 2001 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.artscenecal.com
  30. ↑ Gaskin, Vivienne [12] ` ` Everything '', 1997
  31. ↑ Rosenthal, Norman “The Magic Arts of Noble & Webster - Tim and Sue” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli 2009
  32. ↑ [13] Blain | Southern website
  33. ↑ [14] Gagosian gallery website
  34. ↑ [15] Louisa Buck “Alchemists?”, '' The Art Newspaper '', October 1, 2000
  35. ↑ Deitch, Jeffrey, “Black Magic” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli 2009
  36. ↑ Deitch, Jeffrey, “Black Magic” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli 2009
  37. ↑ [16] BBC Online May 26, 2004
  38. ↑ [17] The Guardian May 27, 2004
  39. ↑ Deitch, Jeffrey, “Black Magic” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli 2009
  40. ↑ [18] MoMA PS1
  41. ↑ [19] MoMA PS1
  42. ↑ Deitch, Jeffrey, “Black Magic” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli International Publications, US, 2009
  43. ↑ Deitch, Jeffrey, “Black Magic” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli 2009
  44. ^ All Visual Arts website
  45. ↑ [20] Sensation's over, now it's apocalypse. Guardian, May, 2000
  46. ↑ Louisa Buck “Alchemists?”, “The Art Newspaper”, October 1, 2000
  47. ↑ Waldemar Januszczak Grotto Fabulous The Sunday Times 17 December, 2006
  48. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The Freud Museum website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.freud.org.uk
  49. ↑ Deitch, Jeffrey, “Black Magic” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli International Publications, US, 2009
  50. ↑ Norman Rosenthal: “The Magic Arts of Noble & Webster - Tim and Sue” in “Wasted Youth” New York: Rizzoli 2009
  51. ↑ Darwent, Charles, Review of Gagosian show, London `` The Independent '', 6 January 2008
  52. ↑ [21] Gagosian Gallery website
  53. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. MCA Denver website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mcadenver.org
  54. ↑ Calder, Diane, “Review of Gagosian Show” ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 2001 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.artscenecal.com
  55. ↑ <Jeffrey Deitch: “Black Magic” in '' Wasted Youth '' New York: Rizzoli 2009
  56. ↑ Zenth, Torben “Interview: Tim Noble and Sue Webster” ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. March 21, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kopenhagen.dk
  57. ↑ Torben Zenth “Interview: Tim Noble and Sue Webster” ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. March 21, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kopenhagen.dk
  58. ↑ Jeffrey Deitch: "Black Magic" in "Wasted Youth" New York: Rizzoli 2009
  59. ↑ Jeffrey Deitch: "Black Magic" in "Wasted Youth" New York: Rizzoli 2009
  60. ^ Gombrich, Ernst, ` ` Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation '' New York, 1960
  61. ^ Norman Rosenthal: The Magic Arts of Noble & Webster - Tim and Sue. in Wasted Youth , New York: Rizzoli 2009
  62. ↑ [22] The Chisenhale Gallery website
  63. ↑ Jeffrey Deitch: "Black Magic" in "Wasted Youth" New York: Rizzoli 2009
  64. ↑ Vogel, Carol "3 Coins Might Short Out This Fountain" "The New York Times", February 21, 2008
  65. ↑ Jeffrey Deitch: "Black Magic" in "Wasted Youth" New York: Rizzoli 2009
  66. ^ Sudjic, Deyan Alchemy in a dilapidated furniture factory `` The Observer '', December 1, 2002
  67. ^ Bradbury, Dominic From Architect to Starchitect , The Telegraph, June 27, 2007
  68. ↑ Sexpistols.net