Past Exhibition
05 Sept – 20 Sept 2009
Conceptual sound artist Hannah Rickards, winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women 2007-2009, spent her residency in Italy at the American Academy in Rome and the Pistoletto Foundation in Biella. The resultant work, No, there was no red. was showcased in the newly expanded Whitechapel Gallery in September 2009 and toured to Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy in October 2009.
Rickards’ two-screen film is based on spoken accounts of a displaced image of a city seen over Lake Michigan as the result of rare temperature inversion mirages. The subjective divergences, consistencies, echoes and counterpoints of these accounts, form the core of the piece, allowing for an exploration of the ways in which this natural occurrence is experienced and described. Text is an integral part of Rickards’ work, and reveals the influence of such early Conceptual artists as Douglas Huebler, Robert Barry and Lawrence Weiner.
The judging panel of the Prize ’07-09 was chaired by Iwona Blazwick, former Director of the Whitechapel Gallery and included Rachel Withers, Art Critic, Cornelia Grassi, Gallerist, Cornelia Parker, artist, and Judith Greer, collector. Rickard’s fellow short-listed artists were Yasmeen Al Awadi, film-maker and photographer, Georgie Hopton, painter, sculptor and photographer, Melanie Jackson, animator, sculptor and film-maker and Lisa Peachey, draughtsman and multi-media artist.
Hannah Rickards was born 1979 and completed a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2002. Following the Prize she had a solo exhibition at Modern Art Oxford in 2014. Previous exhibitions include Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2003), Don Quijote at Witte De With Centre for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam (2006).
Image credits:
Hannah Rickards, No, there was no red. Annotated Transcripts, 2009. Courtesy the Artist and Whitechapel Gallery / Hannah Rickards, No, there was no red. Film Still, 2009. Courtesy the Artist and Whitechapel Gallery
Exhibition and Hannah Rickards film commission supported by:
With additional support for production from Arts Council England.
