Roger Hiorns

📖 The Scoop

A must-have for contemporary art fans, this pocket-sized monograph is the first in an exciting series of small-format books highlighting contemporary works in the Arts Council Collection. Each book comes with a full-colour, fold-out poster. Turner Prize nominee Roger Hiorns is perhaps best known for his sculptures made using copper sulphate solution. For Seizure (2008), he flooded a condemned council flat in South London with this material, turning it into a glittering blue cave for visitors to explore, and his 2004 work Nunhead coats a car engine in the jewel-like chemical crystals, representing the 'crystallisation and transformation of an abstract idea of power'. In Untitled (ACC25/2010) – originally commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago – Hiorns has explored his interest in automation and industrial forms further. The work consists of two decommissioned aircraft engines. Once part of military surveillance planes which have been altered through the insertion of three pharmaceuticals in crushed form – Effexor, Citalopram and Mannitol. The work references the creation and alleviation of anxiety on both a national and personal level, addressing the connection between global security and individual well-being. With beautiful photography throughout, a fascinating and poetic critical text by Tom Morton, this book sheds new light on the practice of one of contemporary art's most thoughtful and innovative figures.

Genre: Art / European (fancy, right?)