Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Working within the vibrant climate of the University of Edinburgh Talbot Rice Gallery seeks to engage artists of wide creative and intellectual reach so we are delighted that our autumn programme of 2008 opens with the artist duo Langlands and Bell. Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell have been working collaboratively since meeting at Middlesex Polytechnic in the late Seventies. Their partnership has been enduring and fruitful and over the past thirty years they have become known for an art of intellectual rigour visual power and pristine beauty. It is a persuasive mixture and one that captures the imagination on many levels. Their most recognised work has taken form as sculptural objects and stylised architectural models. However a little known but constant aspect of their multi media practice has always been film. In this exhibition we aim to explore the characteristics in this work that underpins so much of the artists’ vision. Their first collaborative film The Kitchen 1978 followed by Ooh La La Les Legumes! 1979 and Borough Market 1986 show the artists as anthropologists closely studying human behaviour its symbols and structures balanced with the passing of time. As they have established their international career work in film has developed to embrace new digital technologies interactive programmes and an in-depth exploration of to quote the artists ‘our relationship with the built environment and on a wider global level the ways space is encoded as political social or economic territory’. In a world of such international political economic and environmental instability looking at these visual semantics is made all the more pertinent. We are indebted to Ben and Nikki for their enthusiasm and professional management of the project to Richard Wilding for his invaluable advice and catalogue design to Nick Joyce of Enigma FX and particularly to Chrissie lles for her insightful essay in this publication. (LL)