Employing Cerith Wyn Evan’s ongoing investigation of architecture as a starting point and specifically curated as a response to the De La Warr Pavilion, this exhibition comprised three major installations and smaller new works dispersed throughout the building.
Taking the entire Pavilion as an opportunity for installation, including the two gallery spaces and the roof-terrace, the exhibition also provides the impetus for a wider programme of related live art, music, performance and film during the season.
Visitors saw the gallery spaces stripped back so that they are undivided for the first time. With all of the windows revealed, the installation in Gallery 1 explored the relationship between man-made and natural light, returning the building’s structure to its original purpose – as a space for visitors to experience and enjoy.
Moving up through the building, Wyn Evans’ recent spectacular light/heat column installation, S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E (‘Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive’s overspill…’) 2010, was installed in Gallery 2 to create an intensely glamorous environment with toxic overtones.
On the rooftop there is a new text firework installation,
And if I don’t meet you no more in this world Then I’ll, I’ll meet you in the next one And don’t be late, don’t be late.
Described by the artist as “a love letter to the building”, the exhibition embodied recurrent themes within Evan’s art: code, language, text and an interrogation of aesthetics.
Cerith Wyn Evans in The Guardian (Exhibitionist: This week’s art shows in pictures), 24 March:
“In horror movies, flickering lights generally mean something supernatural. There’s a similar fusion of language, electricity and yearning in Cerith Wyn Evans’s art”