Elizabeth Price debuts video work in first London show since her Turner Prize win
![txtʃərz, 2018, by Elizabeth Price](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/6iUa8CHcQD83VxCT9FyaQC-415-80.jpg)
As a young man exited the small, curtained nook where Turner Prize winner Elizabeth Price was exhibiting her latest two-channel HD video, txtʃərz, he remarked at how refreshing it was to catch an esteemed artist in the backwoods of Waterloo Station. The artist, he said, was bringing her message to the masses – a rare delight.
The venue in question was the Morley Gallery, part of the arts centre at the eponymous college of adult learning in London’s Southbank. And the message, delivered in a dispassionate electronic voice evocative of Stephen Hawking, was of a higher education in turmoil. Price, a former teacher born to two teachers, envisions a field that is increasingly corrupted by money, distrust and corporate greed.
txtʃərz is, at its most basic, a phonetic play on words. Price’s simple graphics superimpose her transcribed script atop backlit stencils of lace fabrics silhouetted like ecclesiastical robes – as perfectly symmetrical as Rorschach tests. While the choppy voice dictates and its missive unfurls across the screen, a narrative unfolds.
A group of disaffected professionals in some futuresque world are sitting a series of silent protests in which they communicate nothing. Any speech comes out in random glottal utterances, which, when strung together, roughly resemble the word ‘teachers’ – though in reality we learn nothing definitive about their demands.
When the media and academia take notice, the effort to define their struggle and its origin creates divisions among the protesters. It’s an absurd premise rendered more so by the robotic narrator: who’s programmed it? Is it impartial? Who can, or should, we trust?
Price’s layering of voices, fabrics, suspenseful music and even time (past and future mix seamlessly with the present) create the requisite texture in this quick, seven-minute hit. You’ll probably want to watch it twice, but ultimately, it’s a lecture on the absence of lecturing that demands your attention.
INFORMATION
txtʃərz is on view 5 – 14 July. For more information, visit the Morley Gallery website
ADDRESS
Morley Gallery
61 Westminster Bridge Road
London SE1 7HT
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at Baltic
Hannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
By Emily Steer Published
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the Barbican
In Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
At Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, activism and innovation meet
Glastonbury’s south-east corner is known for its after-dark entertainment but by day, there is a different story to tell
By Rhian Daly Published
-
‘I am almost an anti-sculptor’: Dominique White on her Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize show
The artist mines the ocean to explore Afrofuturism in ‘Deadweight’, opening at London’s Whitechapel and detailed in a new film
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Remembering Rusty Egan's Blitz Club: a place to 'avoid the mob and the homophobes', where the New Romantics were born
As he releases new vinyl boxset, 'Blitzed!', Wallpaper* meets DJ Rusty Egan to talk about London's scene-building Blitz club – the antidote to the late 70s punk scene and a hot-bed of experimental fashion
By Craig McLean Published
-
Suzannah Pettigrew's 'tender and ghostly' new show at Surrealist photographer Lee Miller's former home in East Sussex
London-based artist Suzannah Pettigrew's photographic stills create a snapshot of her Sussex coast childhood, conjuring up a hallucinatory world of memory
By Mary Cleary Published
-
The body, pleasure and play: Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland united in London
Tom of Finland’s homoeroticism meets Beryl Cook’s female-oriented camp as Studio Voltaire unites work by the two artists in a London exhibition
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Zanele Muholi celebrates South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in LA and London
Zanele Muholi's portraits and sculptures are currently on show at Southern Guild Los Angeles and the Tate Modern, London
By Hannah Silver Published