For the summer of 2014 Grundy Art Gallery will host the acclaimed exhibition by Heather Phillipson (born London 1978) Yes, surprising is existence in the post-vegetal cosmorama –.
Commissioned and originally produced by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead where it was presented in 2013, the exhibition is one of the most technically challenging exhibitions yet staged at the Grundy.
Yes surprising is existence in the post-vegetal cosmorama- invites visitors to clamber inside a series of multi-layered interiors and colour-saturated environments whereby the everyday meets the fantastical. Viewers will encounter films and sculptures that draw on Phillipson’s grasp of the vernacular of both language and objects, as both a visual artist and a published poet.
The Grundy will be transformed into a giant human body of sorts, whereby visitors will happen upon vehicles, vessels, giant bananas and other sculptural and video assemblages evoking sensual experiences and bodily cavities.
For Cardiovascular Vernacular (as in ‘it’s time for my regular cardiovascular vernacular’), 2013, viewers watch the video ha!ah! 2013, from aboard a speedboat surrounded by bottled water. Similarly for the work A Is to D What E Is to H, 2011-13 visitors take in a video work about food, the mouth and French kissing, from inside a Peugeot 406, an experience described by Adrian Searle as like ‘a virtual-reality drive-through car wash’.
