Simon Patterson: Mikrokosmos

Simon Patterson is one of the most consistently inventive of the generation of London-based artists who came to international prominence in the 1990s.

For this exhibition Patterson has digitally collaged a borrowed stamp collection into his late uncle’s 1939-1941 album, selecting only European nations and territories past and present. The pages have been reprinted as if torn from the album. The work itself is a fiction, anachronistic and subtly manipulated.

Mikrokosmos refers to Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s work of the same title which consists of 153 progressive piano pieces in six volumes written between 1926 and 1939. It has been described as a synthesis of all musical techniques and all musical technical problems, and is often used as a teaching exercise for contemporary piano.