Alex Hartley
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About
Encounters with buildings are grounded by conventions and expectations, but Alex Hartley shows us new ways of physically experiencing and thinking about our constructed surroundings – through surface and line, scale and materials, locations and contexts.
Hartley's work addresses complicated and sometimes contradictory attitudes toward the built and natural environments. His practice is wide ranging, comprising drawing, sculpture, photographic works and dynamic architectural interventions. Uniting these works is an ongoing investigation of modern architecture and the ways in which it is conceived and presented. For the artist a sense of unfolding narrative is key. Often destabilising ideas of 'iconic' architecture, Hartley's practice allows room for multiple perceptions of and uses for the built form. His work often possesses the quality of a time machine that frees the mind to wander. In his work it is as if we are teleported into the future in order to look back at the present or very recent past.
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Biography
Born in 1963, Alex Hartley graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1990 and lives and works in London and Devon.
Major projects have included The Clearing, a collaborative and participatory artwork, which occupied the grounds of Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park during 2017; also that year, the artist's work featured in the Yokohama Triennale while the monumental, site-specific installation Wall was on view as part of the 2017 Folkestone Triennial. This followed Hartley's participation in the 2014 iteration of the triennial with Vigil, a project in which together with volunteers he manned a specially constructed look-out point, maintaining a log book to document observations made from the vantage point of the sea-facing Grand Burstin Hotel.
Previously, the artist has undertaken a residency with the National Trust for Scotland (2013) and has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally at venues including the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery (RAMM), Exeter, UK (2024); Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK (2019); KØS Museum for art in public spaces, Koge, Denmark (2019); Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2017); Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK (2017); Contemporary Arts Centre, Ohio, US (2014); Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, Denmark (2013, 2000); Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (2012); Fundación Canal, Madrid, Spain (2008); Leeds Metropolitan Gallery, Leeds, UK (2008); Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland (2007); Natural History Museum, Liverpool, UK (2006); Urbis, Manchester, UK (2006); Distrito Cuatro, Madrid, Spain (2003); and The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (2001). Since 1997 Hartley has been engaged in collaborative site-specific projects with architects including David Adjaye Associates and Alford, Hall, Monaghan and Morris.
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News
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Alex Hartley’s new commission for the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
October 19, 2024The work is on view as part of Dartmoor: A Radical Landscape , a major group exhibition (19 October 2024–23 February 2025) exploring the region's...Read More -
Alex Hartley features in Decennium at Hestercombe Gallery
March 11, 2024On view 23 March–7 July 2024, the exhibition reflects on a decade of making and showing through the work of over twenty artists. Showcasing some...Read More -
Alex Hartley talks to Wallpaper* about his new exhibition Closer Than Before
May 10, 2023‘I'm aware that it’s a triggering thing,’ Alex Hartley says, looking at the watermark that runs around the Victoria Miro Gallery in Venice. ‘I live...Read More -
Alex Hartley features in Watou 2022: Sense of Place
August 10, 2022Alex Hartley is interested in facets of counterculture. His large-scale installations are sometimes presented as ruins where place, purpose and context intermingle. As an example...Read More -
New commissions by Alex Hartley are featured in In Ruins at Witley Court
July 12, 2019Presented by Meadow Arts, In Ruins (12 July-3 November 2019) looks at ideas of ruin and decay through installations, sculptures and other work set in...Read More -
Alex Hartley features in Where Function Ends: Responses to the Architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens
July 10, 2019To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Edwin Lutyens, Hestercombe Gallery presents new work by three artists that responds to the legacy...Read More -
Alex Hartley is featured in The Other Place at KØS, Denmark
April 12, 2019The Other Place (12 April-15 September 2019) presents six key art projects that revolutionise our understanding of what public art can be, showing its constant...Read More -
Artist talk: Alex Hartley
June 12, 2018Join Alex Hartley on Saturday 30 June at 1pm for an informal tour of his exhibition, The Houses , at Victoria Miro Mayfair. Iconic examples...Read More -
Alex Hartley creates a major new work for Folkestone Triennial 2017
September 2, 20172 September - 5 November 2017 Balanced on the cliff edge, next to an Iron Age site for the manufacture of querns (millstones) and the...Read More -
Alex Hartley participates in the 2017 Yokohama Triennale
August 16, 20174 August - 5 November 2017 Titled “Islands, Constellations and Galapagos”, the sixth edition of the Triennale explores ideas of connectivity and isolation. Alex Hartley...Read More -
Matt Rudd spends a week living in The Clearing by Alex Hartley and Tom James at Compton Verney
July 16, 2017 Read More -
City AM’s Steve Dinneen spends a week as caretaker at Alex Hartley’s The Clearing
May 30, 2017Going off the grid: What I learned after a week without technology in an “apocalypse dome”. By Steve Dinneen 'Smartphones are the new cigarettes,” screams...Read More -
The Clearing by Alex Hartley and Tom James featured on Front Row
March 23, 2017Hartley and James discuss their collaborative artwork for Compton Verney, Warwickshire. Listen here . Read more about The Clearing here .Read More -
The Clearing by Alex Hartley and Tom James at Compton Verney
March 18, 2017The Clearing (18 March - 17 December 2017) is a vision of the future in the grounds of Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park ....Read More -
Alex Hartley in Transparency at Walker Art Gallery
March 10, 201724 March - 18 June 2017 Can art help us to see things differently? This exhibition shows how artists in the past and present have...Read More -
Dezeen reviews Alex Hartley: After You Left
December 6, 2016Modernist ruin in London canal provides a glimpse at an uncertain future. By Emma Tucker British artist Alex Hartley has installed this crumbling modernist ruin...Read More -
Alex Hartley: After You Left is one of Louisa Buck's London exhibition picks
November 26, 2016Alex Hartley: After You Left, Victoria Miro, Wharf Road (until 16 December) To my mind the best—and now most prescient—work of art to be associated...Read More -
Time Out reviews Alex Hartley: After You Left
November 25, 2016Alex Hartley: After You Left ★★★★ By Eddy Frankel There’s a house in ruins in a swamp. Palm trees sway as rain taps against their...Read More -
Book launch for Alex Hartley: Now Here is Land
November 23, 2016Thursday 1 December, 6:30-8pm Victoria Miro, 16 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW Panel discussion followed by drinks with the artist All welcome Launch of Alex...Read More -
Designboom looks at Alex Hartley's A Gentle Collapsing II
November 22, 2016Alex Hartley erects a decaying, faux modernist ruin in a jungle-like London garden By Nina Azzarello In Victoria Miro Gallery’s waterside garden, artist Alex Hartley...Read More -
Alex Hartley exhibition featured in Wallpaper*
November 22, 2016If we can count on anyone to wow us with spectacle it's British artist Alex Hartley. From the Arctic to outer space, it seems he...Read More -
Alex Hartley discusses his new exhibition, and more, on Monocle Radio
November 22, 2016Alex Hartley talks to Monocle Radio on the occasion of his new exhibition at Victoria Miro.Read More -
Alex Hartley talks to AnOther about his new exhibition, After Your Left
November 18, 2016The Artist Constructing Modernist Ruins in a Gallery Garden For his enchanting new installation at London's Victoria Miro Gallery, opening this weekend, artist Alex Hartley...Read More -
Alex Hartley discusses his new exhibition After You Left
November 18, 2016Alex Hartley’s new exhibition After You Left features photography-based monochrome works depicting classic examples of mid-twentieth-century domestic architecture shrouded by foliage, a series of large-scale...Read More -
Alex Hartley interviewed in The Spaces about his new exhibition, After You Left
November 16, 2016Artist Alex Hartley builds a Modernist ruin in a London gallery. By Cassie Davies Wedged into the bank of Victoria Miro Gallery’s waterside garden in...Read More -
Alex Hartley: Nowhereisland featured in Art Review
December 7, 2011In July an island nation will arrive in Weymouth Harbour. It will be a moment of magic when a bit of faraway otherness arrives on Britain's coast – bringing something of another place with it.Read More
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Gallery Exhibitions
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Alex Hartley: Closer Than Before
22 Apr – 17 Jun 2023 VeniceThe first site-specific installation at Victoria Miro Venice features a dynamic architectural intervention that transforms part of the gallery, providing context for new wall-mounted works that continue the artist’s interest in layering, materiality, illusion and how art questions our relationship to time.Learn More -
Alex Hartley: The Houses
28 Jul – 29 Aug 2020 Miro PresentsAn extended reality (XR) exhibition of new works by Alex Hartley, featuring for the first time examples of British modernist architecture. In his acclaimed ongoing series The Houses , Alex...Learn More -
Alex Hartley: The Houses
21 Jun – 28 Jul 2018 Victoria Miro MayfairThe Houses is a series of new wall-based works by Alex Hartley inspired by iconic examples of modernist domestic architecture. Alex Hartley’s work addresses complicated and sometimes contradictory attitudes toward...Learn More -
Alex Hartley: After You Left
19 Nov – 16 Dec 2016 London Gallery IAn exhibition of new work by the British artist, including a major architectural intervention in the gallery’s waterside garden. Thoughts of modernism and its legacy, as well as Romantic ideas...Learn More -
Alex Hartley: The world is still big
14 Nov 2011 – 21 Jan 2012 London Gallery IVictoria Miro is pleased to present Alex Hartley's most recent culmination of his on-going investigation into dystopian architecture, secular habitation and the construction of sanctuary as an inherent drive to...Learn More -
The Collection
24 Mar – 9 Apr 2009 London Gallery IVictoria Miro collaborates with Siobhan Davies to present The Collection . For three weeks, performers and artists present specially commissioned dance and artworks at Victoria Miro Gallery in North London...Learn More -
Alex Hartley: Don’t want to be part of your world
6 Sep – 8 Oct 2005 London Gallery IDon't want to be part of your world is a series of large-format landscape photographs Alex Hartley has taken in remote locations around the world. To these idyllic, desolate vistas...Learn More -
Alex Hartley: Case Studies
28 Mar – 12 May 2001 London Gallery IAlex Hartley is primarily known for his glass encased photographs of gallery spaces, tower blocks and fictional architectural constructions. In this exhibition he pursues his dialogue with iconic modernist architecture....Learn More -
Raw
7 May – 30 Jun 2000 London Gallery IYayoi Kusama. Francesca Woodman, Robin Lowe, Adriana Varejão, Isaac Julien, Doug Aitken, Abigail Lane, Hadrian Pigott, Brad Lochore, Cecily Brown, Chris Ofili, Andreas Gursky, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Inez van Lamsweerde,...Learn More -
Alex Hartley: Viewer
29 Oct – 21 Nov 1997 Victoria Miro Cork StreetAlex Hartley presents a major new work, Viewer . A gargantuan fully functioning slide viewer, based on an early sixties design, takes over the gallery space whilst oversized slides lean...Learn More -
Temples
5 – 28 Jul 1995 Victoria Miro Cork StreetJuren Albrecht, Bernd & Hiller Becher, Thomas Demand, Andreas Gursky, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Alex Hartley, Keir Smith, Stephen Willats -
Alex Hartley: Fountain Head
1 Mar – 7 Apr 1995 Victoria Miro Cork Street -
Group exhibition
30 Jun – 30 Jul 1992 Victoria Miro Cork StreetDavid Batchelor, Jake Chapman, Steven Cockerton, Alex Hartley, Pat Kaufman, Sarah Staton
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Contact Form
Contact us regarding available works by Alex Hartley