Gillian Wearing

Gillian Wearing OBE born 1963

Article provided by Grove Art Online www.groveart.com English photographer and video artist. Wearing has described her working method as ‘editing life’. By using photography and video to record the confessions of ordinary people, her work explores the disparities between public and private life, between individual and collective experience. Wearing has cited the influence of English fly-on-the-wall documentaries, such as Michael Apted’s 7-up and the 1970s documentary The Family.Signs that Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say (1992–3), made shortly after her graduation from Goldsmiths College in 1990, was produced by approaching people on London streets, asking them to write something on a card and then photographing them as they displayed it. Private lives were given a sudden and revealingly painful exposure: a policeman holds a card reading ‘Help!’. With the introduction of video and more in-depth interviewing of her subjects, Wearing began to use adult actors lip-synching the recorded confessions of children, and subjects, solicited from advertisements placed in newspapers, making confessions while wearing masks. The introduction of actors signalled an increasingly dramatic element in her work and a shift away from the use of documentary techniques. The 1999 video I Love You used actors to explore the theme of strong private emotion spilling out into a semi-public domain. The scene of a drunken woman repeatedly screaming ‘I love you’ is played out a number of times, the reaction of her three friends differing each time. Wearing won the Turner Prize in 1997.Bibliography M. Paley, ed.: Signs that Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say (London, 1997) Turner Prize 1997 (exh. cat by V. Button; London, Tate, 1997) R. Ferguson and others: Gillian Wearing (London, 1998)JOHN-PAUL STONARD 10 December 2001 Copyright material reproduced courtesy of Oxford University Press, New York

http://www.ual.org.cn/alm%20files/Gillian%20Wearing.htm

艺术家 Gillian Wearing

1963年出生于英国的伯明翰，先后在伦敦的切尔西艺术与设计学院和戈德史密斯学院学习。因为1995年，在美国的明尼阿波利斯展出了作品(Brilliant! ，1997年在英国的伦敦展出了 Sensation，引起了公众的注意，被认为是观念艺术家之一。于1997年赢得了‘透纳’大奖。 60 minutes Silence 1996年，‘60分钟的沉默’ 在60 Minutes Silence,(60分钟的沉默，1996)里面，吉莉安·韦英与公众共同合作的创作关系延伸到了一群看上去像是警察的男女之中。在这件作品里面，就正如任意一群小朋友或者是一帮即将出发的足球队员们一样，他们需要为一张集体合影而保持固定的姿势，直到60分钟的短片拍摄结束以后艺术家才告诉他们可以放松。刚开始的时候画面似乎是凝固的：纹丝不动、像是同一张快照的延续，或是时间的一段横截面。韦英认为，这是受到了早期摄影原理的影响，那时候的摄影对象都必须保持相当长一段时间的静止才能使影像能成功得到捕捉。但是各种轻微的动作，擦鼻子、双手交叉、眨眼、晃动、拨弄和调整头盔的位置等等，显示出这个静止的集体形象开始瓦解。事实上，当人们经历身体的耐性考验的时候，他们所承受的不适会随着时间的推移而不断增加。集体里面每一位成员的左顾右盼，都在他们自己和作品的观众之间建立了一种独特的沟通过程。 《署名说你希望他们说的，不要署名说别人希望你说的 2张》1992-3 作品Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say (署名说你希望他们说的，不要署名说别人希望你说的，1992-93)是由一系列的照片组成，照片的主角都是韦英随意在大街上找的路人，韦英要求他们在一张白纸上随便写下一些东西。然后韦英就用相机把他们拿着那张纸的形象拍下来。有一些场面很让人惊讶：一位西装革履的年轻人在纸上写下了一句“我感到绝望”；一位身穿毛衣的男子拿着一张写下了“我写了东西，他们应该会给我一点什么”。有一篇文章赞扬Signs：“它们直接走向真实，重新表达了人们真正的一面。”很多人都似乎在为着“真实的回归”而欢呼喝彩，但同时不断地有人提醒着：“在后现代时期，世界上已经没有‘真实’的事物，艺术家们穷思竭力地创作出来的作品也只是能表现他们自己一些复杂的‘真实’，并不能作为反映外部世界的‘明镜’。”

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/gillian-wearing

The films and photographs of British artist Gillian Wearing(b. Birmingham, 1963) explore our public personas and private lives. This Turner Prize winner’s remarkable works draw on fly-on-the-wall documentaries, reality TV and the techniques of theatre, to explore how we present ourselves to the world.

Wearing’s portraits and mini-dramas reveal a paradox, given the chance to dress up, put on a mask or act out a role, the liberation of anonymity allows us to be more truly ourselves.

The exhibition begins with the artist herself, dancing in a shopping mall, blissfully unaware of her bemused audience. The idea of performance continues with works including Wearing’s 1997 masterpiece, 10–16. Adults lip synch the voices and act out the physical tics of seven children in a captivating  film which moves from the breathless excitement of a ten year old to the existential angst of an adolescent.

Other highlights include Wearing’s iconic 1992 series,Signs that say what you want them to say, and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say where strangers are offered paper and pen to communicate their message. In the upper galleries we enter the inner world of subjectivity. An advert - Confess All On Video. Don’t Worry, You Will Be In Disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian…(1994) attracted a series of disturbing disclosures. Wearing jettisons her own identity to adopt the guise of family members or artists such as Diane Arbus or Andy Warhol, so revealing her own background and influence.

This comprehensive survey, which also premieres new films and sculptures, shows how Wearing is both political – often focusing on the dispossessed or the traumatised – and poetic, finding the extraordinary in us all.

http://www.postmedia.net/999/wearing.htm