Wood and Harrison: The First 30 Years
ISBN: 978-0-9861666-9-3
Wood and Harrison: The First 30 Years June 15 – August 23, 2020
CRISTIN TIERNEY GALLERY 219 BOWERY, FLOOR 2, NEW YORK, NY 10002
The First 30 Years is an online viewing room of videos, sculptures and more from the last three decades by John Wood and Paul Harrison. Open from June 15th through August 23rd, each week of the viewing room focuses on a different theme in the artists’ practice and presents related works. The First 30 Years also marks the premiere of a documentary surveying Wood and Harrison’s ongoing collaboration with behind-the-scenes videos and commentary. Viewing Room Schedule: • Week One: Trust/mistrust/distrust • Week Two: Minimalism • Week Three: Made to Measure • Week Four: Cardboard boxes, chairs, ladders, and tennis balls are all beautiful • Week Five: Office Work • Week Six: Everyday life is like a film • Week Seven: Killing Time • Week Eight: This stuff is like that stuff but a bit different • Week Nine: Disappointing • Week Ten: Wordplay
Week One Trust/mistrust/distrust In the three videos highlighted this week, the artists perform various physical actions, with the outcome (and their bodily safety) ultimately dependent on the two working together as a unit.
Two figures with their legs tied together try to avoid being hit by tennis balls fired from a machine.
3-Legged, 1997. single-channel Hi8 video. 3:39 minutes.
Two figures attempt to capsize a semi-circle.
Boat, 1995. single-channel Lo-Band U-matic. 1:15 minutes.
Week Two Minimalism The six-channel video and large-scale works on paper highlighted this week demonstrate the artists’ adherence to the inherent qualities of their materials and choice of medium.
A figure performs 36 different activities in a room filmed from above in this six-channel video.
Hundredweight, 2003. six-channel Mini DV. 29:17 minutes.
Socket, 2017. oil stick and oil paint on paper. 102 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches (260 x 300 cm).
Radiator, 2017. oil stick and oil paint on paper. 102 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches (260 x 300 cm).
PRECEDING SPREAD:
Installation visualization by John Wood and Paul Harrison.
Week Three Made to Measure The four videos this week show the artists using their bodies and specially-designed props to explore the space of the screen in hilarious and sometimes clumsy or violent ways.
A figure interacts with six different sized boxes designed for specific movements. Six Boxes, 1997. single-channel 4:3 digital video. 4:18 minutes.
Six devices enable a figure to move in six directions across the screen. Device, 1996. single-channel Beta. 2:45 minutes.
A figure interacts with 13 different objects.
October 97, 1997. single-channel Beta. 7:00 minutes.
Week Four Cardboard boxes, chairs, ladders and tennis balls are all beautiful The videos, sculptures and drawings this week are devoted to the recurring commonplace objects in the artists’ practice.
Box with Dimensions, 2018. cardboard box, oil paint. 12 x 12 x 12 inches (30.5 x 30.5 x 30.5 cm).
Blue Chair, 2015. permanent marker pen on paper. 39 3/8 x 27 9/16 inches (100 x 70 cm).
Figure 1 and Figure 2 interact in a series of 26 different three-dimensional diagrams.
Twenty-Six (Drawing and Falling Things), 2001. 26-channel digital video installation. 21:59 minutes.
John Wood and Paul Harrison: What was the question?
Paul Harrison - How good is your memory? John Wood - What was the question? PH - How good is your memory? JW - Bad, getting worse, old man memory… I think that’s why we draw so much in the studio, noting things down so we don’t forget them. Why do you ask?
PH - What do you mean, easier than being on your own? JW - Yes.
PH - No it’s awful… Yes, it is, much more fun, it helps to have someone as interested as you are in what you are doing, it really helps, I couldn’t imagine working alone. I mean somePH - I just wondered what you thought of me when times I dream of it… we first met, and as that’s a long time ago now… JW - Well that almost happened after Luton (2001); JW - I thought you made dodgy installation work. we came close to killing me. PH - Thanks… In my defence we were students when we met. JW - No excuse for dodgy installation work… you were the year above at art college, so I didn’t know you that well. I thought you were OK. What did you think of me?
PH - Oh yeah, in the end it was just a broken neck, worth it though wasn’t it? It’s a nice piece of work. JW - I’m not totally sure it was worth it, but I agree it’s a nice piece of work… what’s the best piece of work we’ve made do you think?
PH - I thought you were the cool kid in school… and I’ve spent the past 25 years finding out I was very wrong. [pause] I thought you were OK too. JW - Was there a point where you thought, “Yes! I’ve found the perfect collaborator”?
PH - Tough question because all our work is excellent of course… JW - Naturally…
PH - Not yet… JW - We’ve never really had the “let’s work together” conversation have we? PH - No, not really, and it seems a bit late now. JW - Initially it was about being able to get on, not annoy each other, find the same things interesting, find the same things amusing… and then it became about the work we wanted to make. PH - As we’ve found it’s quite hard trying to make art, harder still to try to do that for a long time. Being able to be together in the same room all day without losing it with each other is really important. JW - It’s easier though isn’t it, collaborating?
PH - …but if pushed I’d probably say Notebook (2004). I’m not sure it’s the best “Art” we’ve made but it’s a personal favourite. JW - Why’s that? PH - I guess we both have a personal attachment to the work, all the work, it’s impossible for us to watch in a pure way, like a viewer can. Each work brings back memories of both making it— all the things that went wrong, all the changes we made, how cold it was in the studio, that kind of thing— but also what we were doing outside of the studio, what we were doing in our actual lives. JW - And all those factors affect what you think of the work?
PH - Yes, and they help determine how we view the work I think, especially when it comes to the idea of a “favourite,” so I guess with Notebook I just remember enjoying making it, it was a real challenge, but enjoyable. But equally I could say This is a projection (2018), that’s another favourite, I enjoyed making that too. JW - Are there works you haven’t enjoyed making then? PH - Yep. JW - Why? PH - I guess for the exact opposite reason that a work would be a “favourite,” something about making it I didn’t enjoy or maybe things outside weren’t going so well. Drum and Bass (2018), for example, I really like it as a work but to film it was a pain in the ass. JW - Maybe I should explain for the reader that Drum and Bass is a video work in which I play a bass drum and you play a single note on a bass guitar, alternating on each beat at 180 bpm for 540 beats. It was so easy to drift off or totally fuck up and that kept putting pressure on us to get it right and get the final take. PH - As I said a pain in the ass… But those works, and there are a lot of others which were not fun to make or film, are not bad works for that reason; they are actually some of our best. JW - Have we made a bad piece of work?
PH - I remember us crying with laughter when we came up with that, but it’s a good piece of work though isn’t it? To explain to the reader, we made 102 cast sheep, 100 just standing looking ahead. We had to cast them because toy sheep always look to the left or right, never ahead– yes really. We arranged them on the floor in a circle looking inwards, and in the centre of the circle are two sheep one standing on top of the other. JW - It actually looks really elegant, especially from a distance, it looks like a scatter sculpture from the 1960s, and then you get close and you see what’s happening… PH - I’ll add that to my list of favourite works… Anyway what about you? Favourite work? JW - I would say 3-Legged (1997) is probably my favourite, it brings back memories of being young and being able to move… a bit. PH - I can’t help but notice that we have both chosen quite early works as favourites… JW - Nostalgia probably. PH - I wouldn’t disagree, it’s funny with the earlier video works, people just come up to us and say, “Don’t you look young?” and what they actually mean is, “Don’t you look old now?” JW - It’s also funny with the earlier video works that people think they are funny.
PH - Oh yeah, we have, definitely… well maybe not PH - Yes, I remember that being quite a shock to us when we first showed them, like “These are totally terrible, but very definitely not very good. JW - Care to share? Though I think I can maybe guess. our works of art about the human body and space and living in the world and our relationship to one PH - Study No.1 (1993). another etc…” JW - I thought so… again for the reader for this work JW - And people just laughed. we built a cardboard ramp with two toy trucks on it, PH - Yes, not a bad response though really, one at the top and one at the bottom, connected via and once we got over the surprise, we did start a pulley, when we poured sand into the top truck it to use that “humour” as a way to engage the ran down the ramp and pulled the other truck up the ramp… actually you were wrong before, that work was viewer and then hope they would notice other things going on. totally terrible. JW - I’ve always thought some of the works were mildly PH - We have bad ideas every day don’t we? amusing if anything, but maybe it’s the context in which It’s important to have bad ideas but equally they are viewed that amplifies any humorous content. it’s important not to actually make those bad I think or at least I hope the works are accessible, ideas into works. whether that’s down to any humour being present or JW - We have made some bad ideas into if it’s more that the works are relatable in the way that works though. a lot of the situations we set up are everyday… or maybe every other day. PH - You think? JW - Yes, I think Sheep Entertainment (2012) was I remember one of our first conversations about the a terrible idea, that terrible idea being to ask the work we were making was about how we should try question: “How do sheep entertain themselves?” and make work that was “watchable” and by that I think we meant making work that people wanted to watch.
PH - Yes, because there is a lot of unwatchable video art isn’t there? JW - Yes, I mean there’s a lot of bad painting, awful sculpture, terrible performance but the art form or medium which has the highest proportion of crap work made is definitely video. PH - Let’s hope we are not adding to that canon, I guess that’s not for us to say… JW - I don’t think we are… with the exception of Study No.1, of course. PH - Maybe we should remake that piece, go all Chris Burden and do it life-size. JW - It would still be crap… we did talk about re-making Board (1993) though didn’t we? PH - Yes, until we realised we couldn’t physically do it anymore, or maybe we could do it but it would take us a lot longer. JW - Board (1993): Duration 3 minutes. Board (2020): Duration about an hour and a half… PH - Do you think that’s why we make a lot of other things now? I mean why we make paintings, sculpture, drawings and stuff? JW - What do you mean? Because we are no longer physically capable of making some of the video works? PH - Yeah, I mean let’s face it we were both Adonises in our early twenties… JW - Agreed… PH - ...but now we are not. JW - I don’t think that’s the reason. I mean we can’t do some of the stuff we did, but the video works evolved from those early performances more because we felt we had done all we could with that kind of approach and we wanted to explore other things. I guess that’s also why we started to make paintings, etc.: we just wanted to explore other areas. PH - And I guess we make different types of shows, too, not just room after room of video works. That can be hard–hard to change the tone or pacing of a show if everything is moving image. JW - It’s also fun and a challenge to make other kinds of work, a bit of a risk, not in the way that skydiving is a risk, but you know what I mean… PH - Yes of course, and not only in that we could find out that we can’t paint... but also that it can confuse people. “I thought these were the guys that made the funny videos? And now they are doing this?” JW - But it all fits though doesn’t it?
PH - Yes, well to us it seems to fit and be a natural progression, it’s the same approach, it comes from the same place, the same thinking. JW - I suppose A Film About a City (2015) is a good example. That started out as an idea for a video work and in the end, after about a year of working on it and realising the things we wanted to say just didn’t work in that medium, it became a physical architectural model. PH - Another favourite, if I’m allowed one more… we showed it at Gallery von Bartha in 2015. We’re due another show with the gallery later this year, what are we going to show? JW - Not sure… but we’d better come up with a plan PH - So the gallery don’t think we are idiots? JW - Yep. PH - I really like this stage of making a show, when everything is open, and in your head it will be the best show we have ever made… JW - Or the last show we ever make… PH - We have a lot of new work, paintings, drawings, odd bits of sculpture, odd bits of other things. It would be great to bring that all together, it’ll be a great show I think… we have new video work too, video number 64… JW - Yeah, we talked the other day about how it has taken us 27 years to make 64 video works, so roughly we need another 13 or so years to take us up to 100 video works… we’ll be in our mid-sixties by then. PH - I wonder what our 100th video will look like… JW - I’m guessing it will be called Mobility Scooter (2033). PH - Can you imagine how bad both our memories will be by then? JW - What was the question?
Week Five Office Work The videos and sculptures this week explore the creative possibilities of the most mundane of office supplies: paper, pencils, pens, photocopiers and staples.
Staple/Shelf, 2009. 100 staples on a shelf. Dimensions variable.
A piece of paper is balanced between two fans.
Fan/Paper/Fan, 2007. single-channel HD video. 3:16 minutes.
A belt sander is applied to a stack of A4 paper measuring one kilometer when laid out end to end. One More Kilometre, 2009. single-channel HD video. 2:45 minutes.
Good Book I, 2011. book with Post-it Notes. 8 11/16 x 5 7/8 x 1 15/16 inches (22 x 15 x 5 cm).
Week Six Everyday life is like a film The video and drawing in week six illuminate how seemingly uneventful moments can also be cinematic.
Everyday Life, 2017. pencil on paper. 27 1/2 x 39 3/8 inches (70 x 100 cm).
A camera looks into 100 rooms, each of which is a standard office with an anonymous worker character.
Tall Buildings, 2011. single-channel HD video. 14:14 minutes.
Week Seven Killing Time Three videos featuring death and disaster nod to the black humor and sardonic attitude running through the artists’ body of work.
A model car drives off a model pier.
Car/Lake, 2014. single-channel HD video. 7:06 minutes.
A figure is assassinated 13 different ways in carefully choregraphed vignettes. 13 Assassinations, 2013. single-channel HD video. 7:00 minutes.
These things happen Ian White
There is a standard text on John Wood and Paul Harrison’s work. It usually goes something like this: Abbott & Costello, Bas Jan Ader, Bruce Nauman, Buster Keaton, Carl Andre, Chris Burden, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Edward Lear, Émile Cohl, Fischli & Weiss, Flaubert / Bouvard et Pécuchet, Frank Spencer, Fred Astaire, Gilbert & George, Georges Méliès, Hope & Crosby, J. G. Ballard, Jackson Pollock, Jacques Tati, John Cage, Keystone Cops, Kraftwerk, Laurel & Hardy, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Monty Python, Morecambe & Wise, Paul Valéry, Robert Morris, Samuel Beckett / Estragon & Vladimir, Sol LeWitt, Stuart Brisley, Richard Serra, The Odd Couple, Vic Reeves & Bob Mortimer, Wilbur & Orville Wright, Yves Klein, Yvonne Rainer. The everyman deadpan slapstick double-act. Then there is minimalism, action painting, performance art, comparisons with Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, DIY television shows, a nod towards MDF (their construction material of choice) and the occasional Ta-da! sound effect of a magician revealing a woman sawn in two. There is a difference between “artistic intention” and “critical interpretation” and perhaps this role-call of double-acts and celebrated artists of the 1960s and ‘70s, art movements and childhood memories is an extreme example of it. The work of John Wood and Paul Harrison does not take as its subjects the characters of popular comedy, literary duos or art history. Such responses to Wood and Harrison’s videos make clear that there are a number of co-ordinates through which we might read their presentations of (often small) actions and (generally domestic) objects. These co-ordinates reveal as much about the (pop) cultural lexicons of the writers as they do about the
work’s actual content. Moreover, this list of antecedents, “influences,” comparisons and analogies is a testament to these videos’ immediate plethora of access points. There is a peculiar ease then with which Wood and Harrison’s work lends itself to writing—attested to no less than in the box set born from their multi-video piece Twenty-Six (Drawing and Falling Things) [2001]: twenty-six separate videos comprised an installation, twenty-six letters in the alphabet, so for the publication twenty-six writers were asked to respond to one video each, the range and the registers of these texts varying wildly enough to prove a point and corrupt a lexicon while playing in its format. My point, though, is that these videos are not in and of themselves even about interpretation. So if we can say Wood and Harrison’s videos are like many things, but they are not those things in and of themselves, “What are they then?” becomes the question, which begs a question in turn about whether we should be able to answer the first one. I am no different to those who have taken a comparative tack to describe this work. As such my own response would start with a comment about Yvonne Rainer— about how her practice as a dancer radically redefined the field. This is exemplified by Rainer’s short dance piece Trio A (first performed 1966), whose minimalist tendencies she famously annotated as the elimination (or minimising) of “illusionism” and “performance,” “monumentality” and the “virtuosic feat,” the “role of the artist’s hand.” Rainer substituted “task or tasklike activity” [sic] for “literalness,” “energy” for “equality” and “‘found’ movement” for “factory fabrication.”1 Rainer’s notes could provide the beginning of a reading of Wood and Harrison’s early work Board (1993), in which the two artists move from left to right across the video
Yvonne Rainer, “A Quasi Survey of Some ‘Minimalist’ Tendencies in the Quantitatively Minimal Dance Activity Midst the Plethora, or an Analysis of Trio A,” first published Gregory Battock, Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology (New York, E. P. Dutton, 1968), reproduced with an introduction in Yvonne Rainer, A Woman Who... (Baltimore & London, John Hopkins University Press, 1999).
1
monitor screen in a choreographed, performative non-performance articulated around a set of orchestrated manoeuvres with a 8’x4’ board. Wood and Harrison’s “dance” across the screen visually echoes the space of the television set itself; with their “ordinary” actions, typically locked-off camera, and (only generically) minimal mise-en-scène, describing the permutating bisection of this space is like Rainer’s erasure and re-inscription of the proscenium arch theatre.
operations of an internal logic, or formal (and stylistic) unities between separate actions whilst actually toying with the viewer’s expectations of consistency.
October 97 redefines the principle of “permutation” that Board establishes: its thirteen different actions which all seem similar, occurring in a similar space, are in actual fact just that—different. One of the artists is revealed, stood under a fluorescent strip as it flickers on; a mock slideshow pastiches Muybridge in real time but shows Assuming some kind of cohesion, this simile very quick- only an upright artist in the gaps between movements, ly unravels as a useful tool and I would need to start in stasis but also moving from left to right across pointing out differences. In Board maybe it is illusionism the screen in stages. A “free-floating” bright green in fact that informs its minimalist-looking strategies. The watering can magically rotates 360° around but away space we see is an imaginary echo of the monitor, it is from one of the artists’ heads; a roll of paper is held not actually the monitor. One of the artists disappears aloft and unfurled to make a rectangle that obscures behind the board which has become a wall to climb the person holding it. The person, then, has things over; one of the artists holds the board upright on its done to him and instigates things happening to objects. shorter edge and lets it drop as the other takes exactThe parts are equivalent but not the same, they do not ly the number of paces in front of it to avoid being hit provide the stylistic or physical rules of this operation. as the other lets it fall flat, a slam-dunk pun. In favour The final video in the sequence of October 97 makes of the entertainment that variety provides, actions are difference most explicit, reflecting and modifying the not repeated. Board is not referencing Rainer but is a sixth document in Six Boxes. In the final action of Six controlled commentary on “dance” via anti-“dance,” Boxes... one of the artists makes a leap from the back which renders discussing it in Rainer’s terms redundant: corner of the white cube in an attempt to catch a ball a demonstration of all that redefines the functionalism of suspended in mid-air. We see this leap through slow a non-dramatic prop as a game of possible usage. motion, then freeze frame: a video-induced suspension like the section in Device when one of the artists is So, to move from thinking about individual works in literally suspended by ropes as he is manoeuvred from Wood and Harrison’s oeuvre in relation to those similar standing upright on a board into a static dive. Formally things that inform our responses to them. Perhaps the different from, though not disconnected to, the static cue comes from the opportunity that this publication it- “movement” of the Muybridge pastiche and a pun on self provides—to think about the trajectory of their work Yves Klein surely to be read as if the reference is their as it describes itself, rather than discuss single works content? Maybe, maybe not. as accessible cultural amalgams. Board prefiguring the feat of Harry Houdini (there’s no escape that I can see) The thirteenth action of October 97 is one of the artists (1994) in its combination of controlled yet basic trickery sat on a chair that he is tilting, on the edge of stability, and definition-bisection of the screen as a contained misusing it, about to topple until... another freeze frame space. Board as a position that Wood and Harrison’s and we are denied the conclusion of him falling. Losing works move away from, away from physical interaction the punchline and the art historical reference, we feel or exploration of the body in relation to the human-scale the shock of the formal yet naïve (like early pop proobject (as in Six Boxes [1997], Shaft [1995], Headstand mos) video trick in direct comparison to the principle [1995]), towards the body as object in Volunteer of real-time recording that each of the previous actions (1998) or, even further, the invisible instigation of poles have established—emphasising not just the difference collapsing in the complex Hundredweight (2003): its between this final record and all of the others, but also explosions of colour and repeated, formal engagement posing the principle of difference through which we read of chance as balls fall across a floor, table legs leave what has come before. The body as an equal part and traces of random motion, shelves collapse. almost as arbitrary as a prop, or an art historical joke, one action as different from the next as a watering can Works such as October 97 (1997) (or Device [1996], is from a roll of paper. The body not about itself but even) that consist of a series of videoed actions provide about a demonstration that these things can happen a template of how the lexicon of this body of work in this medium, in a state of play: movement, incident, might be read. That is, they establish sets of rules as a illusion. If there is a joke here then it is one more absurd misnomic structure—rules which are in fact unreliable than pure comedy, one that is already acknowledged by and inconsistent. The works seem to suggest the the shot in October 97 that sees nothing happen to the
seated artist until an apple falls from the ceiling onto his head: and that this, despite all of their contraptions and set-ups to play against it, to render function through dysfunction or misuse, is a “joke” about gravity, ha, the joke of being alive. Being made aware that we are literally attached to this planet by an invisible force is both hysterically mundane and an irrefutable principle made perverse in showing itself, being repeatedly observed. Gravity is absurd.
ocean; in fact, if we imagine the world in which Wood and Harrison’s actions occur not to be on land at all, but to be all at sea, in the bowels of a ship, on an on-deck platform, the peculiar panic of it making sense starts to occur. As such, this turning upside-down, this being all at sea is a metaphor that I tentatively extend to the work as whole. Precisely, it is a demonstration of the point at which motion induced by physical action takes over from its instigation, turns the tables, subjecting the perpetrators to the effect of physical movement which No wonder then that Wood and Harrison cannot help they began but have no control over. Maybe it is more but also repeatedly turn themselves, or one turn the like induced weightlessness, like the image of the two other, upside-down. No wonder then that this is develartists wobbling around on office chairs inside the back oped through the body of their work as it intersects with of a van which we never see in Twenty-Six: Luton. the repeated appearance of an actual or abstract boat. Upside-down. It occurs literally in Six Boxes (one of the Regardless, after all this, something basic feels revealed artists is swung in a quarter-circle across the ceiling of by Wood and Harrison’s irregular patterns of inexhausta box and then lowered vertically, head first); October ible, developed and developing engagement. Curiously, 97 (strapped to a horizontal pole, one of the artists is meaning accumulates but is not imposed, not in terms turned from face-up to face-down); Headstand (like a of intention, or application, not the system of a formalist magic trick in which we see everything, a vertical box lexicon but a basic law that is also unnameable, mancontaining one of the artists is hinged, flipped over in ifested through complex (brilliantly stupid) interaction, halves so the artist is manoeuvred from standing to against the fog of normative usage, through the scrutiny standing on his head); Twenty-Six: Boat 2 (one of and re-presentation, even, of the normal, the everythe artists is seen first sat upright, strapped into an day—studied, isolated, plucked, phrased even: action adapted, white, stylised boat and turned upside-down and inaction, cause and effect, body and object. and then second is seen climbing out of the hull as the Life, huh. Like I say, these things happen. boat repeats its turn). In Volunteer one of the artists is lowered into an increasingly narrow shaft inside a box, head first, echoed in Twenty-Six: Lifejacket as one of them slides down a diagonal shaft and is halted, stuck there by his inflating lifejacket. There are more instances than this list, not to mention those times when the camera itself is turned upside-down, obviously in Upside Down (1998), illusionistically in Harry Houdini..., more discreetly in shooting the whole of Hundredweight from above. In Boat (1995) both artists are seen inside a “D”shaped box, like an abstracted hull in cross-section, the same shape that figures in Device (the same shape as a miniature solid that we see them balancing on in Twenty-Six: Semi-Circle and they rock and rock until the shape reaches its extreme position, like a fairground ride. A cut (another unity gone) and the hull falls from its curved to its flat side. In part this “D”-shape performs geometry, the length of its curve exactly the length of the floor of the box which contains it and which it is designed to perfectly traverse and occupy. But it is also exemplary in describing an alternate set of conditions, an induced disorientation which replaces the simple demonstration of gravity with a complex one that is equally funny, ridiculous and revealing of the nature of things, action and laws. It is like the world and its objects playing themselves out on an unpredictable
Week Eight This stuff is like that stuff but a bit different The video, drawings and sculptures this week play with the conventions of classification, mining the divide between appearances and reality.
Following the format of a lecture, two figures humorously dissect how different things are described and presented. Erdkunde, 2015. single-channel HD video. 16:04 minutes.
6 Orange Chairs, 2018. chairs, oil paint. each: 29 1/8 x 20 1/16 x 19 11/16 inches (74 x 51 x 50 cm).
Week Nine Disappointing The penultimate week showcases works with anticlimactic endings that frustrate expectations.
Two mountaineers reach the top of a mountain.
Unrealistic Mountaineers, 2012. single-channel HD video. 9:00 minutes.
No Thought, 2016. pencil on A3 paper. 11 3/4 x 16 1/2 inches (29.7 x 42 cm).
Week Ten Wordplay The final week focuses on Wood and Harrison’s use of language to create or obstruct meaning, and includes text drawings as well as some of their most recent videos.
It’s a Picture, 2017. pencil on paper. 39 3/8 x 27 9/16 inches (100 x 70 cm).
Work, 2016. pencil on paper. 39 3/8 x 27 1/2 inches (100 x 70 cm).
A carousel slide projector presents 81 slides of descriptive, reflexive text.
This is a Projection, 2018. single-channel HD video. 5:22 minutes.
List of Works Week One: Trust/mistrust/distrust
Week Three: Made to Measure
3-Legged, 1997 single-channel Hi8 video 3:39 minutes edition of 3 + 2 AP CT-7002
Device, 1996 single-channel Beta 2:45 minutes edition of 3 + 1 AP CT-7058
Board, 1993 single-channel video 3:02 minutes edition of 3 + 2 AP CT-7008
October 97, 1997 single-channel Beta 7:00 minutes edition of 3 + 1 AP CT-7059
Boat, 1995 single-channel Lo-Band U-matic 1:15 minutes edition of 3 + 1 AP CT-7911
Six Boxes, 1997 single-channel Mini DV 4:18 minutes edition of 3 + 1 AP CT-7009
Week Two: Minimalism
Volunteer, 1998 single-channel Mini DV 6:20 minutes edition of 3 + 1 AP CT-7027
Exit Sign, 2017 oil stick and oil paint on paper 102 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches 260 x 300 cm CT-6887 Hundredweight, 2003 six-channel Mini DV 29:17 minutes edition of 3 + 2 AP CT-7057
Week Four: Cardboard boxes, chairs, ladders and tennis balls are all beautiful 2 Balls of String, 2015 string Dimensions variable CT-6819
Radiator, 2017 oil stick and oil paint on paper 102 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches 260 x 300 cm CT-6834
4 Grey Chairs chairs, oil paint 39 3/8 x 20 1/16 x 23 1/4 inches 100 x 51 x 59 cm CT-6827
Socket, 2017 oil stick and oil paint on paper 102 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches 260 x 300 cm CT-6886
Blue Chair, 2015 permanent marker pen on paper 39 3/8 x 27 9/16 inches 100 x 70 cm CT-6898 Box with Dimensions, 2018 cardboard box, oil paint 12 x 12 x 12 inches 30.5 x 30.5 x 30.5 cm CT-6831
Quite Good Drawing of an Apple, 2012 pencil and permanent marker on A4 paper 8 1/4 x 11 11/16 inches 21 x 29.7 cm CT-6835
Pencil (Rubber), 2009 pencil embedded in wall 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 inches .6 x .6 x .6 cm CT-6809
Storage Solution (Ladder), 2018 wood 11 13/16 x 39 3/8 x 11 13/16 inches 30 x 100 x 30 cm CT-6869
Photocopier, 2007 single-channel digital video 2:56 minutes edition of 3 + 3 AP CT-7021
Twenty-Six (Drawing and Falling Things), 2001 26-channel digital video installation 21:59 minutes edition of 3 + 1 AP CT-7005
Staple/Shelf, 2009 100 staples on a shelf Dimensions variable CT-7113
White Fire Extinguisher, 2018 fire extinguisher, oil paint 23 5/8 x 7 7/8 x 7 7/8 inches 60 x 20 x 20 cm CT-6828
Week Five: Office Work 500 Thoughts, 2010 single-channel HD video 12:35 minutes edition of 5 + 2 AP CT-7004 Fan/Paper/Fan, 2007 single-channel HD video 3:16 minutes edition of 5 + 2 AP CT-7018 Good Book 1, 2011 book with Post-it Notes 8 11/16 x 5 7/8 x 1 15/16 inches 22 x 15 x 5 cm CT-6810 One More Kilometre, 2009 single-channel HD video 2:45 minutes edition of 3 + 2 AP CT-7022 Pen and Pencil, 2015 biro, pencil, and electrical tape 13/16 x 6 5/16 x 13/16 inches 2 x 16 x 2 cm CT-6818
Week Six: Everyday life is like a film Everyday Life, 2017 pencil on paper 27 1/2 x 39 3/8 inches 70 x 100 cm CT-6839 Tall Buildings, 2011 single-channel HD video 14:14 minutes edition of 5 + 2 AP CT-7023
Week Seven: Killing Time 13 Assassinations, 2013 single-channel HD video 7:00 minutes edition of 5 + 2 AP CT-7006 Car/Lake, 2014 single-channel HD video 7:06 minutes edition of 5 + 2 AP CT-7013 English Disaster, 2012 single-channel HD video 10:00 minutes edition of 5 + 2 AP CT-7020
Week Eight: This stuff is like that stuff but a bit different 6 Orange Chairs, 2018 chairs, oil paint each: 29 1/8 x 20 1/16 x 19 11/16 inches 74 x 51 x 50 cm CT-6826 Erdkunde, 2015 single-channel HD video 16:04 minutes edition of 5 + 3 AP CT-7019 Spirit Level, 2013 permanent marker pen on paper 27 9/16 x 39 3/8 inches 70 x 100 cm CT-6832
French, 2017 pencil on paper 39 3/8 x 27 1/2 inches 100 x 70 cm CT-6840 It’s a Picture, 2017 pencil on paper 39 3/8 x 27 1/2 inches 100 x 70 cm CT-6841 Justified, 2012 permanent marker on A4 paper 11 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches 29.7 x 21 cm CT-7090
Week Nine: Disappointing
Oh No, 2011 permanent marker on A4 paper 8 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches 21 x 29.7 cm CT-7077
No Thought, 2016 pencil on A3 paper 11 3/4 x 16 1/2 inches 29.7 x 42 cm CT-7081
Redacted Drawing, 2015 carbon ink on A3 paper 11 3/4 x 16 1/2 inches 29.7 x 42 cm CT-7098
Listening, 2016 pencil on paper 27 1/2 x 39 3/8 inches 70 x 100 cm CT-7041
This is a Projection, 2018 single-channel HD video 5:22 minutes edition of 5 + 2 AP CT-6426
Unrealistic Mountaineers, 2012 single-channel HD video 9:00 minutes edition of 5 + 2 AP CT-7025
This is a Recording, 2019 single-channel HD video 4:30 minutes edition of 5 + 2 AP CT-7026
Week Ten: Wordplay
Uh Oh, 2011 permanent marker on A4 paper 8 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches 21 x 29.7 cm CT-7084
2 Dimensional Drawing, 2013 permanent ink on A3 paper 11 3/4 x 16 1/2 inches 29.7 x 42 cm CT-7101 Blink, 2016 pencil on paper 27 1/2 x 39 3/8 inches 70 x 100 cm CT-7034
Work, 2016 pencil on paper 39 3/8 x 27 1/2 inches 100 x 70 cm CT-7043
John Wood (b.1969, Hong Kong) and Paul Harrison (b.1966, Wolverhampton) make single-channel videos, multi-screen video installations, prints, drawings, and sculptures that elegantly fuse advanced aesthetic research with existential comedy. The artists’ spare, to-the-point works feature the actions of their own bodies, a wide variety of static and moving props, or combinations of both to illustrate the triumphs and tribulations of making art and having a life. The videos maintain a strict internal logic, with the action directly related to the duration of the work. Inside this “logical world” action is allowed to happen for no apparent reason, tensions build between the environment and its inhabitant, play is encouraged and the influences on the work are intentionally mixed. In their notalways-successful experiments with movement and materials, many of which critic Tom Lubbock has described as “sculptural pratfalls,” Wood and Harrison employ exuberant invention, subtle slapstick, and a touch of light-hearted melancholy to reveal the inspiration and perspiration—as well as the occasional hint of desperation—behind all creative acts. Wood and Harrison met in 1989 at the Bath College of Higher Education, and have worked together since 1993. Their work is represented in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, British Council Collection, Kadist Foundation, MOMA, Tate, MUDAM, Tel Aviv Museum, and Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, among others.
Cristin Tierney Gallery 219 Bowery, Floor 2 New York, NY 10002 212.594.0550 www.cristintierney.com