An exhibition by Josiah McElheny, which narrates a decade of the artist’s efforts to visualise alternative histories of Modernism. Presenting works made between 2008 and 2017 in various media, including sculpture, painting, film, installation, photograms and posters, the exhibition asserts McElheny’s view that ‘reconstructing history’ can be a creative process itself and that aesthetics are always political.
The exhibition is divided into three distinct sections, each of which is inspired by an individual: the artist Robert Smithson, the writer Paul Scheerbart and the physicist Andrei Linde. In the first part of the exhibition, McElheny draws on some of Robert Smithson’s lesser-known works and writing from 1964─66, including his essay The Crystal Land which was published in Harpers Bazaar in 1966 and from which the exhibition borrows its title. After the intimate vistas of McElheny’s ‘paintings’, he offers a different kind of contemplation in the second part of the exhibition, through the combination of image and language. In the third part of the exhibition, the scale of McElheny’s ‘models for worlds’ expands to its largest possible size with the installation Island Universe (2008).
| Duration | 01 March 2017 - 13 April 2017 |
| Times | Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 6pm Sunday 12pm - 6pm |
| Cost | Free |
| Venue | White Cube - Bermondsey Street |
| Address | 144 – 152 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3TQ |
| Contact | / enquiries@whitecube.com / http://whitecube.com/ |