Sean Edwards
»Clothes«, 2007
Video, colour, sound, 1:40 min.
Courtesy the artist and Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin

Sean Edwards, »Clothes«, 2007, Videostill, Courtesy the artist and Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin

Sean Edwards

14. Dezember 2012 – 27. Januar 2013

Invited by Ben Borthwick (Independent curator and director of, Artes Mundi 5, Cardiff / Wales).

»Clothes« (2007)

A man stands passively while a young woman methodically straightens his tie, adjusts his jacket, makes him ready. He does as he is told, turning around, bending down to have his hat puffed, removed, replaced. The film is shot from an upstairs window and trespasses voyeuristically on a private moment of trust, a quiet interlude that is immanent with possibilities. The vintage car and rural »Sunday best« outfit points to a grand occasion, but this is the transitional moment between private space and a public stage.

The performativity of gender roles is intimate, familial, pragmatic and precise. She constructs him as an image and, when all is done, he shares a self-conscious funny face with his »dresser«, acknowledging the awkward gap between himself and the clothes he is wearing, between himself and the character he is being dressed to perform.

Clothes is part of a series of works in which Edwards films found, everyday, incidental situations. He frames the subject of each in relation to its sculptural and physical properties: manipulating materials, constructing space, and finishing a surface. The films set up relations between the body and the object in such a way that they evoke a connection to both making and looking at sculpture, and the place of the sculptural object or experience within daily life.

Text: Ben Borthwick

Sean Edwards (*1980, Cardiff) graduated from the MA in Sculpture, Slade School of Art in 2005. Recent solo shows include Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg (2012) Limoncello, London, Tanya Leighton, Berlin, Spike Island, Bristol (all 2011). Recent group shows include Zabludowicz Collection (2011), Wallspace Gallery, New York (both 2010), Lisson Gallery, London (2009). Recent publications include »For Lal, or Henry«, The Block, London (2012) and »Maelfa « Bedford Press, London (2011).