Roger Hiorns: SEIZURE

Press Release

Roger Hiorns has made works with detergent, disinfectant, semen, fire, copper sulphate’ He uses these materials to effect physical and aesthetic transformations.

In SEIZURE - Hiorns’ most ambitious large-scale work to date - he precipitated an unexpected physical form using copper sulphate solution within the fabric of a social housing block near London Bridge. A vast chemical process that was profoundly ambiguous: perfect and perverse at once, the crystal was a result of the geometry of nature, both organic and systematic. He has applied this process to objects reminiscent of the rational structures of human knowledge, creative control and industrial power via his total crystallisations.

For his first work within an urban site, Hiorns’ SEIZURE made a radical shift of scale and context - an extraordinary chemical intervention in the heart of the city.

SEIZURE followed on in Artangel’s long tradition of transforming urban housing into large-scale immersive works of art.

Roger Hiorns’ SEIZURE was commissioned by Artangel and the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, in association with Channel 4. The work was selected through the Jerwood/Artangel Open, a new commissioning initiative for the arts, which was launched in the summer of 2006 in association with Channel 4 and Arts Council England.

Roger Hiorns on SEIZURE