The World is still big!

Clearing, 2011

Constructed mixed media on C-type photograph

©Alex Hartley, Victoria Miro Gallery

Alex Hartley

Victoria Miro

22. Nov. - 21 Jan. 2012

The problem about going to an opening at the Victoria Miro is that you don't want to leave. Hanging out at the combined Parasol Unit and Victoria Miro back garden in front of the pond is social, comfortable and fun. We tried to get to the Lisson gallery after, but we barely managed to sneak in for a minute and only catch a glimpse of the great light works of Daniel Buren before they closed their doors. 

In the middle of the gallery stands Victoria Miro herself, orchestrating the event calmly, and talking to Grayson Perry (dressed in casual black this time). Picked as one of ArtReviews 100 most powerful people in the Art industry, she certainly looks like it too. 

I can't possibly give Alex Hartley the credit he deserves by showing the photos from the exhibit, there are just so much more to them that you will need to see in person. When you look at these photos you see a flat image, well it's not. Every single image has been rebuilt to show a place of seclusion, a sanctuary. All of the "Sanctuary" details are architectural models that are put on top of the photos or engraved into the the photos, like small caves. With "Waiting for daylight to End" as an example you have here a small hut built by wood.

Waiting for daylight to End

(Kacynski's cabin), 2011

Constructed mixed media on C-type photograph

©Alex Hartley, Victoria Miro Gallery

""...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 form refuge from the world. Hartley returns to his previous lines of investigation; community, belonging and isolation, and counter culture versus establishment, however with a clear and decisive shift in presentation and form."

- Victoria Miro Gallery

Uniglory, 2011

Constructed mixed media on C-type photograph

©Alex Hartley, Victoria Miro Gallery

These days can't last forever, 2011

Constructed mixed media on C-type photograph

©Alex Hartley, Victoria Miro Gallery

This image is taken in Joshua Tree, does it seem habitual to you? Alex Hartley shows us a way of inhabiting the un-habitable, or is it the other way around? You are given the opportunity to make up your own interpretation.

What strikes me is that he is giving nature a new level of survival or should I say destitution. Is there a future in using these desolated parts of the world for the people? Deep inside of me I feel great horror at the thought of all land being inhabited.

Dropper, 2011

Alex Hartley will be living in his version of a Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome, situated on the terrace by the pond during the exhibit. (the eco - dome was very popular among the hippies in the 60's in Drop City Colorado, therefore probably the fitting name Dropper).

Here Alex Hartley, will have his own little sanctuary in the middle of London.

With Sanctuary Love

Kristin