Thomas J Price

The Space Between

12 February – 16 April 2022

St. Moritz

Thomas J Price’s multidisciplinary practice confronts preconceived public attitudes towards representation and identity.

Explore the exhibition

For his first solo exhibition in Switzerland, titled ‘The Space Between’, Price presents a selection of small and large-scale sculpture spanning two decades, alongside two of his film works that show another dimension of his practice. The exhibition is an exploration into the artist’s long-established preoccupation with ancient traditions of monumental sculpture, alongside an intrinsic understanding of the symbolic power and hierarchy held in materials.

Price’s sculptures depict imagined subjects through the artist’s hybrid approach of traditional sculpting and intuitive digital technology. ‘My work references art history as a means to reveal our learnt understandings and attitudes towards representation within the traditional canon and the systemic marginalisation within it’ states Price. The exhibition coincides with ‘Witness’ at Marcus Garvey Park with the Studio Museum Harlem, NY, until October 2022, as well as the installation of the sculpture ‘Reaching Out’ at Chillida Leku, San Sebastian on view until June 2022.

Price refers to his fictional subjects as psychological portraits of the viewer: ‘The viewer brings themselves to the works, they bring their understandings, their schemas, their set of values which they use to navigate the world around them’. His figures and heads are amalgamations of various sources, from observed individuals and stereotypes represented in the media, to references to ancient, classical, and neoclassical sculptures. Materials and methods used in Greek and Roman statuary are combined with 3D scanning and modelling to generate transhistorical forms. In ‘Numen (Shifting Votive 1, 2, 3)’ (2016) Price combines the traditional process of lost-wax casting with aluminium, a material more commonly associated with modern engineering, to present a series of emblematic heads raised to eye-level on marble columns.

Similarly, ‘Icon Series’ (2017) adopts gilding, a technique which dates to Ancient Egypt and amplifies a sense of luxury and splendour, alongside 3D printing to create the casting molds. Placed on quartzite plinths, the sculptures exude a powerful cultural resonance, challenging our awareness of current iconography and the unmediated immortalisation of triumphant figures. Price’s Icons gaze beyond the viewer and are consumed in their own thoughts and emotional worlds, reframing the image and associations of Black men in contemporary society today. These contemplative works embody objects of worship for the modern age, whilst uncovering the haptic depths of Price’s expanding range of mediums.

This theme is extended in new modes of display within both ‘Power Object (Section 1, No.1)’ (2018) and ‘Sonic Work (Collective Palette #01)’ (2020/21). The two distinctly abstract bronze works share an aesthetic of 20th century modern masters, critiquing an art historical canon that has contributed to the misinterpretation of Black male identity. At first appearing as an abstract monument on a Carrara marble plinth, ‘Power Object (Section 1, No.1)’ depicts the cross section of a groin of a male figure in jogging bottoms. Price considers whether this object is projecting power, or rather subjected to it. The title itself reveals the racial disparity of Britain’s stop and search policy, ‘Section 1, No.1’.

Whilst the majority of Price’s oeuvre relates more closely to the male figure, ‘Lay It Down (On The Edge of Beauty)’ (2018), as well as his most recent work in the exhibition, ‘Reaching Out’ (2021), mark a poignant shift towards female identity and a shared Black experience. ‘Lay It Down (On The Edge of Beauty)’ extends Price’s line of enquiry into deities, illuminating universal threads within popular culture, media, and fashion that relate to signifiers of Black womanhood. Price intends to spotlight the stigma associated with hairstyles and formal conventions of beauty, as well as the lack of acknowledgment when they are reappropriated outside of their true origin.

Harnessing the narrative power of performance, film and animation have been a consistent element throughout the artist’s career to date. ‘Man 10’ (2012), a stop-motion animation, demonstrates an early desire to respond to the history of racialisation and magnifies the complexities of deep social tensions. Drawing upon his own lived experience and commonplace observations, Price elevates our awareness of unconscious forms of communication through subtle shifts in facial expressions and movements.

Also on view in the exhibition is Price’s later film ‘From the Ground Up’ (2016), a two-channel work which presents the artist lacing and cleaning different pairs of shoes from a fixed bird’s-eye view perspective. Slowly working his way through an array of footwear, from white trainers to black leather shoes, Price explores themes of material culture and the value we place on objects, as well as the social cues they instigate.

On view in St. Moritz

The gallery is open to the public Tuesday to Saturday, 11 am to 7 pm. Please visit our location to plan your visit.

About the Artist

Thomas J Price

Thomas J Price’s multidisciplinary practice confronts preconceived attitudes towards representation and identity, foregrounding the intrinsic value of the individual and subverting structures of hierarchy. Celebrated for his large-scale figurative sculptures, Price draws our attention to the psychological embodiment of his fictional characters, highlighting nuanced understandings of social signifiers and predetermined value. Amalgamated from multiple sources, the works are developed through a hybrid approach of traditional sculpting and intuitive digital technology. Price balances methods of presentation, material and scale to challenge our expectations and provide cues for deeper human connection. He encompasses historic constructs with a newness that at first glance can go unnoticed, but that live in the public realm as silent totems for change.

Price’s practice extends beyond a strategy of figuration, harnessing the narrative power of performance, film, photography, animation and abstract sculpture consistently throughout his career. The poignant early performance work, ‘Licked’ (2001), features Price repeatedly licking the inside of a room, conceived as an expression of humanity, a desire to make the internal visible, of becoming a part of a place and its physical, material history. The artist’s presence continues in ‘Sonic Work (Collective Palette #1)’ (2020), an abstract bronze sculpture in which Price has cast the inside of his own ear. Although not immediately identifiable, the work seeks to capture the invisible space between the outside world and our innermost thoughts, calling into question how we translate what we experience into our perception of the world around us.

Price compels the viewer to consider how and why things are made, embedding references to ancient, classical and neoclassical sculpture alongside a sophisticated understanding of the symbolic power of materials. In ‘Head 18’ (2017), Price intentionally exposes the seamline of the plaster to reveal the process of casting, commenting on the relationship and ownership between artist and artefact. Sculptures of polished bronze and marble are luxurious and monumental, appearing to be rooted in the canon of 20th Century sculpture, yet the line of conceptual enquiry challenges our awareness of current iconography and the unmediated immortalisation of triumphant figures. In ‘Numen (Shifting Votive 1, 2, 3)’ (2016), Price combines the traditional process of lost-wax casting with aluminium, a material more commonly associated with modern engineering, to present a series of emblematic heads raised to eye-level on marble columns. The works set out to challenge traditional holders of power, to question provenance and instead bind one human experience to another in a manner that feels inclusive.

Born in 1981, Price lives and works in London. He studied at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London and has held solo exhibitions at institutions including: The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada; The National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; MAC, Birmingham, UK; Royal College of Art, London, UK; Harewood House, Leeds, UK; and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK. Price’s work is held in collections such as The Donum Estate, Sonoma, CA; Government Art Collection, London, UK; The Wedge Collection, Canada; Derwent London, UK; Murderme, UK; and the Rennie Collection (Canada). Price was the recipient of the Arts Council England Helen Chadwick Fellowship in 2009.

Price was commissioned by Hackney Council to create the first permanent public sculptures to celebrate the contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants in the UK, unveiled in June 2022. His solo presentation, ‘Witness’, in collaboration with The Studio Museum in Harlem was on view in Marcus Garvey Park from 2021 – 2022.

Inquire about available works by Thomas J Price

Thomas J Price. The Space Between’ is on view now through 16 Apr 2022 at Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz.

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