 |
Anne Hardy, Two Joined Fields – Field (/\) and Field (decagon) 2013 (Detail) Maureen Paley Bethnal Green |
 |
Anne Hardy, Two Joined Fields – Field (/\) and Field (decagon) 2013 (detail external view) Maureen Paley Bethnal Green |
 |
Anne Hardy, Two Joined Fields – Field (/\) and Field (decagon) 2013 (Detail) Maureen Paley Bethnal Green |
Photographic truth is distorted in Anne Hardy's images of oddly decorated walls and empty, post-party interiors. Hardy's large-scale photographic practice has centered around the construction and destruction of makeshift sculptural spaces, contingent environments which she builds in secret from objects and materials in and around her studio. These spaces are then light with unnerving clarity (read Jeff Wall) then photographed in incredibly high detail and destroyed and recycled into other work. The temporary pavilion remains unseen and unknown to the viewer who comprehends only a partial fragment of it (a memory) through the photographic representation. It's role is momentary - like a stand in. A dummy. The memory of a performative act which is then absorbed into the artist's wider practice. There is no original. As William Kherbek writes in his Port Magazine review, the work is never just the object.
During a recent residency at Camden Arts Centre Hardy explored the possibilities of allowing the these sculptural environments to be remain as exhibited installations. Her recent show at Maureen Paley includes two such installations Two Joined Fields – Field (/\) and Field (decagon) and Fieldwork (materials). The former is displayed in the upstairs space. An irregular polygon made from plywood sheets and two-by-fours, entry is via a pair of swinging saloon doors, the casual nature of which belies the seriousness of the gallery space. The blue carpeted interior (a room within a room) presents cement prisms–pyramids, obelisks, spheres, oblongs–placed with great care in accord with geometric drawings and paint smears worked directly onto the walls. There is a sense that the room has been host to some kind of shamanistic ritual wherein an attempt has been made to communicate beyond the dimensions of space and time. The Beuysian shaman has been and gone and we are left to consider the use of these objects, the intention of the ceremony and the space-distance between us and the intended receivers for whom the ritual was performed.
