press notice
coming next
Katie Paterson 26 April-23 June 2013 Kettle’s Yard Gallery & St Peter’s Church, Cambridge
‘Katie Paterson’s art enables us to engage with forces that are too intangible and too immense for us to experience in other ways’ Art Monthly
press notice
Kettle’s Yard is delighted to present an exhibition of work by artist Katie Paterson (b. Glasgow 1981). Paterson has earned widespread acclaim since leaving the Slade School of Fine Art in 2007 and was recently the youngest artist to be included in the Light Show at the Hayward Gallery, London. Collaborating with leading scientists and researchers across the world, Paterson’s remarkable poetic and conceptual projects consider our place on Earth in the context of geological time and change. The exhibition at Kettle’s Yard and St Peter’s Church is the culmination of the artist’s residency at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge. The exhibition brings together several recent artworks and a major new piece Fossil Necklace.
press notice
Andrew Nairne, Director of Kettle’s Yard comments ‘We are thrilled to be presenting Katie Paterson’s ‘Fossil Necklace’ in St. Peter’s Church, Cambridge, next to Kettle’s Yard. This will be the first opportunity to see this major new piece by one of our most talented younger artists. Her highly original and imaginative work poetically exposes our sense of self within time, space and history.’ Fossil Necklace is made of over 170 especially carved beads. Together they chart the evolution of life on earth from a dinosaur claw to a squid’s backbone. The oldest fossil is over 3.5 billion years old. The necklace is ‘a history of our planet and life, the vast expanses of time embodied in each tiny bead, and our pathways across the planet rooted in the rocks, looking from the present back to the very earliest forms of cellular life.’ (Katie Paterson, April 2013). The artwork evolved during Paterson’s residency, as she witnessed Sanger scientists’ research into Genetic Evolution, where DNA sequencing is unlocking our planet’s evolutionary origins. Fossil Necklace will be displayed in St Peter’s Church next to Kettle’s Yard. St Peter’s, a beautiful small church, was rebuilt in the 18th Century but retains 12th Century and Roman details. It is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
For further information please contact Susie Biller at Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, Castle Street, Cambridge CB3 0AQ U.K. tel 01223 748100 • fax 01223 324377 • susie@kettlesyard.cam.ac.uk • www.kettlesyard.co.uk
Other pieces in the exhibition, displayed in Kettle’s Yard Gallery approach the themes of time and scale in different ways. To create her work Inside this desert lies the tiniest grain of sand Paterson collaborated with experts in nanotechnology to carve a grain of sand to just 0.00005mm across, which she then buried deep within the Sahara desert. A photograph of Paterson standing amongst the dunes scattering the tiny grain, features in the exhibition, a contemplation of the monumental elevating the minute. As The World Turns is a record player moving imperceptibly slowly, in time with the rotation of the Earth. In Campo del Cielo, Field of Sky an ancient meteorite, fallen to earth and buried, is discovered and remade. The meteorite has been cast, melted then re-cast by the artist into a new version of itself that visitors can touch. The artist hopes to return it to space one day. Opening event: Thursday 25 April, 6.30-8.30pm, introduction by Kettle’s Yard Director Andrew Nairne and Katie Paterson at 7pm. Katie Paterson’s residency at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is one of six international residencies which made up Wellcome Collection’s Art in Global Health project: www.wellcomecollection.org/global We are grateful to the Churches Conservation Trust and St Giles’ Church for their support.
Please contact Susie Biller for further information and images. Photographers are invited to photograph Fossil Necklace from 1pm on Thursday 25 April. Susie@kettlesyard.cam.ac.uk, 01223 748100. Kettle’s Yard & St Peter’s Church open Tuesday-Sunday 11.30am-5pm.
Editors Notes Katie Paterson, born in Glasgow in 1981, studied Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art before graduating from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2007. She has since participated in numerous exhibitions in the UK and internationally including Modern Art Oxford; the Power Plant, Toronto; PERFORMA 09, New York; Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009, Tate Britain; BALTIC; the Kunsthalle Wien; Haunch of Venison, London and the Hayward Gallery. Her work is included in the collections of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Zabludowicz Collection, London and Guggenheim, New York. Katie Paterson divides her time between Berlin and Scotland. For more information see: www.katiepaterson.org
Fossil Necklace As one of the six Art in Global Health residences Katie Paterson has been meeting scientists from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute over the past six months. The Institute is a charitably funded genomic research centre located in Hinxton, nine miles south of Cambridge in the UK. A leader in the Human Genome Project, the Institute is now focused on understanding the role of genetics in health and disease. www.sanger.ac.uk To create Fossil Necklace Paterson has been working with specialists in Berlin to source fossils from around the world as well as doing her own fossil hunting, including early morning searches during low tide on the beaches of Fife, Scotland. Fossils include: Wooly Rhino, Whale ear, Itchysaur, Iguanodon, ancient trees. The oldest fossils are Stromatolites, which provide some of the most ancient records of life on Earth, dating back more than 3.5 billion years. Roger Dunkin from Holts Academy of Jewellery has worked with Paterson to carve the fossils into beads.
Kettle’s Yard Opened in 1957 Kettle’s Yard is a remarkable house and collection with a programme of modern and contemporary art exhibitions, educational activities and music. Kettle’s Yard is part of the University of Cambridge. Please see www.kettlesyard.co.uk and www.kettlesyardonline.co.uk Kettle’s Yard receives regular support from Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund, Higher Education Funding Council for England and Cambridge City Council.