Stephen Willats, Endless

Stephen Willats / Still Life With Two Vases With Diagrams, 2011 / video / Edition 2/3

STEPHEN WILLATS /// ENDLESS GALERIE THOMAS SCHULTE

27 JANUARY to 10 MARCH 2018

Installation at Galerie Thomas Schulte Berlin, Germany, 2018

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STEPHEN WILLATS/// ENDLESS

Galerie Galerie Thomas Schulte is pleased to present ENDLESS, the eighth solo exhibition at our gallery by conceptual artist Stephen Willats. On view in the exhibition are works ranging from 1977 until today including films, collages and drawings, in which the artist addresses how we interact with the objects and symbols in our immediate environment, how we relate to them, appropriate, transform and reinterpret them.

Since the 1960’s, Willats has been considered among the most important practitioners of international conceptual art in England. His focus is on investigating urban conditions through communication processes, network formations and structures. In his work he looks at the personal living space and the values of the respective individual; how we perceive our surroundings, define them and shape them for ourselves. However, this is not only about the relationship between social groups and individuals, but also about the relationship to the semiotic systems, which affect us daily in the form of architectural structures, objects, and sounds, which shape our personal and social experience.

In the exhibition the works are integrated into an endless wall-drawing across the whole of the gallery space, consisting of continuous swarm-like, grouped, identical arrows pointing in different directions. The works on paper are drawings in colored pencil and photo collages. For these, Willats photographed the inhabitants of high-rise buildings and their belongings that surround them in their private sphere including telephone, television, supplies and other personal possessions. Objects that the people like and need and which belong to their habitat, objects which at some point were considered modern and with which people felt kept them in touch with modern life. While in some works Willats represents the relationships between people and objects as found, in others the artist creates new relations as in the series Buildings and Vases.

The vases in these works are as monumental as the skyscrapers with which they are juxtaposed.

On a structural level, it could be said that buildings are themselves vessels which can absorb something while externally retaining a concrete form. Thus, because of its structure, the tower block with its reduced and modernist façade, for Willats serves as an object of study in his work; an object with a simple, sleek exterior, but with a highly complex, cellular interior, where people live and create their own individual worlds. In other works from the Conceptual Tower series, Willats uses intense colors to highlight geometrically abstracted objects and buildings, which he connects to each other with delicate arrows. They represent another variant of the artist’s diagrammatic systems that depict or invent transformations, relationships and communication models. As part of this group of works the four-part work Life in Various Forms with its straightforward title appears as a collaged manifesto by the artist.

For the exhibition Willats has created a video entitled ENDLESS. In it the artist refers to the ideas and concepts of the cyberneticist and philosopher Heinz von Förster and his concept of a “cybernetics of a second order”.

Although Willats’ aesthetically austere and at the same time delightfully colorful artistic language and his quasi-scientific, graphic formats are well-known, they simultaneously leave all questions open, since ultimately they are artistic creations in their own right. Thus, Willats’ work and his committed practice remain closer to real life than other contemporary productions.

Installation at Galerie Thomas Schulte Berlin, Germany, 2018

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Conceptual Tower No. 45, 2011 Photographic prints, gouache, pencil, photographic dye on paper 85 x 122 cm | 33 1/2 x 48 in Framed: 97 x 134.5 x 5 cm | 38 1/4 x 53 x 2 in SWIL/GTS 141

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Conceptual Tower No. 42, 2008 Pencil,poster paint, photographic prints, photographic dye on paper 86.5 x 137 cm | 34 x 54 in Framed: 99.5 x 150 x 4 cm | 39 1/4 x 59 x 1 1/2 in SWIL/GTS 122

Conceptual Tower No. 41, 2008 Poster paint, pencil on paper 79 x 134 cm | 31 x 52 3/4 in Framed: 86 x 141 x 3.6 cm | 33 3/4 x 55 1/2 x 1 1/2 in SWIL/GTS 57

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Conceptual Tower No. 40, 2006 Poster paint, pencil on paper 64 x 127 cm | 25 1/4 x 50 in Framed: 73 x 136 cm | 28 3/4 x 53 1/2 in SWIL/GTS 56

Installation at Galerie Thomas Schulte Berlin, Germany, 2018

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Variations Between Four, 2010 Video, 3:30 min.

Edition 1/3 SWIL/GTS 151

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ENDLESS, 2017 Video, 6:50 min.

Edition 1/2 SWIL/GTS 152

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Still Life With Two Vases With Diagrams, 2011 Video Edition 2/3 SWIL/GTS 153

Moving Around, 1999 4 panels, photographic prints, Letraset text, photographic dye on card Framed dimensions: Panel One: 31.5 x 106 x 1.2 cm | 12.4 x 41.73 x 0.47 in Panel Two and Three: 68 x 31.5 x 1.2 cm | 26.77 x 12.4 x 0.47 in Panel Four: 60 x 58 cm x 1.2 cm | 23.6 x 22.8 x 0.47 in SWIL/GTS 150

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In Transition Series No. 2, 2017 Photographic prints, photographic dye, acrylic, pencil on paper 75 x 127.5 cm | 29 1/2 x 50 1/4 in SWIL/GTS 140

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In Transition Series No. 1, 2017 Photographic prints, photographic dye, acrylic, pencil on paper 67.5 x 133 cm | 26 1/2 x 52 1/3 in SWIL/GTS 139

In Two Minds, 2010 3 panels, photographic prints, photographic dye, acrylic, ink, Letraset text on card 107 x 76 cm | 42 x 29.9 in each 108 x 77 cm | 42.5 x 30.3 in each SWIL/GTS 138

Conscious, Unconscious Continuous Discontinuous, 2013 3 panels, photographic prints, photographic dye, acrylic, ink, Letraset text on card 81.5 x 103 cm | 32 x 40.5 in each Framed: 82.5 x 104 x 2.6 cm | 32 1/2 x 41 x 1 in each SWIL/GTS 137

Installation at Galerie Thomas Schulte Berlin, Germany, 2018

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The World of Objects and the World of People, 2013 Photographic prints, photographic dye, acrylic, Letraset text on card 82 x 112 cm | 32 1/4 x 44 in Framed: 82.5 x 113 x 2.6 cm | 32 1/2 x 44 1/2 x 1 in SWIL/GTS 145

Installation at Galerie Thomas Schulte Berlin, Germany, 2018

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Strange Attractor No. 23, 2013 Photographic prints, acrylic, photographic dye, pencil on paper 84 x 132 cm | 33 x 52 in Framed: 97 x 146 x 5 cm | 38 1/4 x 57 1/2 x 2 in SWIL/GTS 144

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Strange Attractor No. 13, 2012 Gouache, pencil, photographic prints, photographic dye on paper 91 x 129 cm | 35 3/4 x 50 3/4 in Framed: 103 x 141.3 x 5 cm | 40 1/2 x 55 2/3 x 2 in SWIL/GTS 135

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Strange Attractor No. 16, 2013 Gouache, pencil, photographic prints, photographic dye on paper 78 x 126.5 cm | 30 2/3 x 49 3/4 in Framed: 90 x 138.5 x 5 cm | 35 1/2 x 54 1/2 x 2 in SWIL/GTS 136

Installation at Galerie Thomas Schulte 2017 Berlin, Germany, 2018

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Tower Block Drawing No. 4, 1983 Photographic prints, ink, pencil, crayon on paper 80 x 130 cm | 31 1/2 x 51 1/4 in Framed: 82 x 132 x 4 cm | 32 1/4 x 52 x 1 1/2 in SWIL/GTS 133

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Tower Block Drawing No. 2, 1983 Photographic prints, ink, pencil, crayon on paper 75 x 115 cm | 29 1/2 x 45 1/4 in Framed: 89 x 129 x 4.4 cm | 35 x 50 3/4 x 1 3/4 in SWIL/GTS 134