25/04/2024
How to rebuild a city with Karam Alkatlabe
The exhibition ‘Simon Patterson: Out of Order’ (open now till 21 January 2023) includes early works by Patterson from Wolfson College’s Frangenberg Collection, including Imperialvision Song Contest ‘Rome Version’ 1994 and the Periodic Table, 1996.
Patterson emerged as a significant artistic voice as part of the Young British Artists movement in the late 1980s. He studied at Goldsmiths’ College in London and took part in the seminal ‘Freeze’ exhibition of 1988, alongside Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Abigail Lane, Lala Meredith-Vula, and others.
The Great Bear, a witty reworking of Harry Beck’s classic London Underground map, brought him to the attention of the wider public in 1992. In 1993, he showed a pair of Last Suppers at the Venice Biennale, in which the disciples took the formations of football teams, with Jesus Christ in goal.
Patterson was nominated for the Turner prize in 1996 and is showing two maquettes related to the Turner Prize show in this exhibition. He has made numerous permanent and temporary works, and has exhibited at major museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Kunsthaus Zurich; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, The Hayward Gallery, London; and Tate Britain, Liverpool and Modern.
Exhibition curator, Professor Phillip Lindley, said: “Simon Patterson is intellectually and aesthetically one of the most interesting of the artists to emerge from the ‘Young British Artists’ grouping in the late 1980s.
“His ‘name-paintings’ three of which are shown here, and his disruptive rethinkings of graphic diagrams and textual schemata are often humorous, but they also prompt wider reflections on the way that we discipline and order our understanding of the world.
“His loans for this show supplement the College’s holdings of early works with some much more recent pieces, showing his development in exciting new directions.”
Viewing the exhibition
The exhibition is open to the public Saturdays and Sundays, 10.00-17.00, until Sunday 22 January 2023.
The exhibition may occasionally be unavailable, for instance during graduations, so please get in touch with the Porters' Lodge in advance of your visit (01223 335900).
