Beth Laurin: Provisorium by David Price, This is Tomorrow (2017)

A lucidly frank interview in the accompanying publication to clarifies that the relationship between ‘art’ and ‘life’ in her work is a deep interface, emphasising the personal connections to and between the objects she uses, even if some of their secret personal significances remain undisclosed. This very personal aspect to her approach to materials takes on a mysterious kind of discretion in the context of Laurin’s work in the public realm. The exhibition details the process of a number of works realised as public sculptures beginning with ‘Del 1 (Part 1)’ (1976), an expanded fragment of a work from an earlier sculpture series, ‘Tillstand (State of Mind)’, begun in the late 1960s. Whilst the original works were forms of self-portrait, ‘Del 1’ takes a more abstract section of the work and extrapolated it into something more like an architectural fragment; as if a stone column had become pliable and had lain itself down on the ground. Likewise, ‘Skulpturer i Östraboskolan Uddevalla’ (1970), seem like columnated structures allowed to bend and soften. A column that supports nothing but itself is truly provisional, and would seem almost to be thinking for itself, writhing free from its utilitarian purpose and history. This public work is represented in the exhibition in the form of documentation photography presented on what appears to be a public information panel in the small garden in front of the gallery.

Read the full article by David Price here.