Stephen Willats : REPRESENTING THE POSSIBLE
Stephen Willats : REPRESENTING THE POSSIBLE
Information
An exhibition which brings together previously unseen works on paper from the 1960s and the present day in a specially conceived installation.
Willats' career is also currently celebrated in two further London exhibitions: CONTROL, the first survey of the artist's work from the sixties, is at Raven Row until 30 March, and CONCERNING OUR PRESENT WAY OF LIVING, an archive exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, will be on view from 4 March to 14 September 2014.
Drawing has been key throughout Willats' practice, often as a signifier of larger ideas. From the start of his career in the early 1960s, Willats has rejected aesthetic expression in favour of positioning his drawings as active 'data', which offer a means to communicate a way of looking at and thinking about our environment. REPRESENTING THE POSSIBLE comprises four large-scale site-specific wall drawings that will transform the gallery's architecture into an immersive drawn environment with thirty-seven individual works floating upon their surfaces. The installation, a first for the artist on this scale, is designed to be experienced as a single work, with each individual drawing acting as a point of intersection that provides a variable, dynamic exchange between the viewer and their surroundings.
The act of drawing for Willats exists on multiple levels, each related but with specific outcomes, as he explains in a new text published to accompany the exhibition: "What as a thought is internal, transient and unfocussed, through the process of drawing becomes clear and possible; to be understood by someone else, from one person to another - a vehicle for social exchange. So the drawing can be both descriptive, in that it gives a view on something that already exists, or prescriptive, in that it seeks to represent something that does not yet exist, is only imagined as a possibility. Something only becomes a possibility once it exists as a thought".
Throughout his career Stephen Willats has situated his pioneering practice at the intersection between art and other disciplines such as cybernetics, systems research, learning theory, communications theory and computer technology. In so doing, he has constructed and developed a collaborative, interactive and participatory practice grounded in the variables of social relationships and settings. Willats creates multi-sensory, multi-dimensional environments to encourage viewers to engage with their own creative and cognitive processes. Relating to the everyday world, his work presents a vehicle of exchange through which viewers can re-examine and transform the way they perceive the fabric of existing reality.
An illustrated publication with a text addressing key themes of his drawings written by Stephen Willats accompanies the exhibition.
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Writing about the exhibition, which took place at the gallery in London from 22 November 2023–13 January 2024, Andrew Hunt comments, ‘In essence, Willats provides a template not only for a radical transformation of society, but also for rereadings of history.’ Andrew Hunt, Artforum -
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Stephen Willats: Time Tumbler is reviewed by ArtReview
‘In his applied practice, there is an instructive humility and dedication to understanding people that seems to be lacking in so much contemporary art.’ – Nathalie Olah Nathalie Olah, ArtReview -
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Stephen Willats features in Rhythm and Geometry: Constructivist art in Britain since 1951 at Sainsbury Centre
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Stephen Willats: Going Round a Corner, North Ormesby, Middlesbrough 2016
Created in 2016, this is a preview of a film by Stephen Willats, released ahead of his major exhibition Human Right at Mima, Middlesbrough (4 March – 4 June 2017). -
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September 17 2019
Do Ho Suh and Stephen Willats feature in the Chicago Architecture Biennial
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September 1 2019
Stephen Willats features in Still Undead: Popular Culture in Britain Beyond the Bauhaus at Nottingham Contemporary
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August 19 2019
Pushing Paper: Contemporary Drawing from 1970 to Now featuring Grayson Perry and Stephen Willats at the British Museum
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July 31 2019
Kunstbulletin reviews Stephen Willats: Languages of Dissent at Migros Museum
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July 22 2019
Stephen Willats: CONTROL Magazine launch
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June 14 2019
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February 1 2019
Stephen Willats features in Objects of Wonder, British Sculpture 1950s – Present at the PalaisPopulaire, Berlin
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July 14 2018
Stephen Willats in FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art
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June 16 2018
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April 25 2018
Stephen Willats: Control at Tate Liverpool
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April 6 2018
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November 25 2017
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October 19 2017
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October 9 2017
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September 19 2017
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Event
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February 13 2017
Control Issue Twenty Launch
The launch (6 - 9 pm 17 February 2017) of the latest issue of Control, published and edited by Stephen Willats. Laure Genillard Gallery, London -
Exhibition
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February 8 2017
Stephen Willats: Human Right, a major survey exhibition at Mima
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Exhibition
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January 20 2017
Stephen Willats included in This Way Out of England: Gallery House in Retrospect at Raven Row
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Review
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October 5 2016
Stephen Willats: Vision and Reality publication reviewed in the TLS
The artist Stephen Willats first came to English council housing not as a tenant but as someone who believed that artworks should be anchored to the society in which they are made. Lynsey Hanley, The Times Literary Supplement -
Exhibition
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April 12 2016
Stephen Willats: Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979
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Publications
March 13 2014
Stephen Willats: REPRESENTING THE POSSIBLE
Stephen Willats: REPRESENTING THE POSSIBLENot currently available£ 20.000 in cart -
Review
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December 28 2011
Stephen Willats reviewed in Art in America
Data collection and organization is an art form at which the British conceptualist Stephen Willats excels. His solo exhibition "The Strange Attractor," the first in New York for this sexagenarian artist, included a series of charts and diagrams relating to observations made on New York City streets. In addition to a number of works on paper, Willats produced a group of videos, some of which were screened in neighborhood shops, and a large installation that served as the show's centerpiece. Charles Marshall Schultz, Art in America -
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