Cerith Wyn Evans

Untitled, 2008

Multiple flourescent tubes, wood
402 x Ø 50 cm
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary

The new series of light columns constructed from house-hold fluorescent tubes – represents a kind of neo(n)-classicism if one will. Like a Las Vegas version of classically proportioned columns, these structures radiate so much light and heat, one can almost imagine them breathing. The neon wall text, “One evening late in the war…” quotes a text from James Merrill’s ‘The Changing Light at Sandover’ (1976-1980), a 560-page epic poem written in three parts over the course of more than 20 years together with his partner, David Jackson. The poem is a transcription of supernatural communications recorded during ouija board séances. The excerpt chosen by the artist, written by an unknown, supernatural author, emits a poisonous - (almost blinding) mauve glow – and coupled with the lumens of the columns scattered throughout the space – perversely transposes and filters all melancholic notions of the Romantic down to a question of readability.

Cerith Wyn Evans, *1958 Llanelli, UK