Jane and Louise Wilson: Suspending Time

Centro de Arte Moderna da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon)
Jane and Louise Wilson: Suspending Time

Jane and Louise Wilson’s work tends to distort modern principles, those in particular related with the “form follows function” concept. This concern is translated into black and white photos (Sealander, 2006) about the abandoned bunkers, such as the defensive fortification – Atlantic Wall – created by the German troops during the Second World War that, half a century later, is being invaded by nature and graffitis. These pictures punctuate the sisters’ individual show at the laborious and challenging the main exhibition space of the Centro de Arte Moderna of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.

The protection of testimonies and the conservation of evidences start from the historical memory. The twin sisters’ work entails a constant remembrance of what use to be, the psychologically state of living in times already gone, be it the Second World War or the colonial periods, for instance, and unconsciously aspires to return to a lost youth. The works on show are an archaeology analysis about how do these narratives reverberates today, how we lose living memory and create time suspended memories.

As part of the mnemonic archive (framed by films, videos and photographs) created by Jane and Louise Wilson, the series Oddments (2008) enclose thousands of second-hand books standing still on shelves or laying around in piles, some without covers others missing a few pages; all with a kind of flaw, a fault marking the object. Though, this brings back into one’s mind JG Ballard’s vision about the contradiction of modern life. Whereas Ballard, through the written word, evokes fractured landscapes full of wrecked machinery, as is explored in the novel about sexual arousing Crash (1973), or in the deserted beaches of The Terminal Beach (1964), in some of Jane and Louise’s pictures the disturbing motion given by the human presence transform an inert space in the sexiest recollection of books, embedded by a place packed with deep sensations, firm emotions, the exciting flaws and time made evidence imperfections.

Published at Lapiz, Revista Internacional de Arte. Año XXIX, Núm. 259/260 (156), February/March 2010 España © Jane and Louise Wilson, Casemate H667, 2006