Wallspace achieved a huge amount in the past four years by highlighting the extent to which spirituality features within the mainstream art world and showcasing the breadth and diversity of those artists who express their faith commitment through their work or engage positively with the Church as a patron. The vision for, and achievements of, Wallspace were developed principally by its Director, freelance curator Meryl Doney.
As the email bringing the sad news of Wallspace's demise stated: "There really isn't anything else quite like Wallspace, with its dedicated focus on contemporary art that explored rich and challenging spiritual territory, in its spectacular 18th century sacred setting. We are proud of everything we've achieved since we began in March 2007. From our opening exhibition of Damien Hirst's New Religion, which examined issues of truth and human obsessions, to our final show Commission, which showcased the extraordinary breadth and depth of art in churches across the UK. Wallspace has established a benchmark for quality, variety and vigour."
The highlights from four years of Wallspace exhibitions showcase the breadth of an under-reported rich and challenging exploration of spiritual territory to be found in contemporary art:
- Damien Hirst's New Religion included an altar holding a cedar cross studded with gem-like pills, a child's skull and a heart wrapped in barbed wire and pierced by needles and razor blades, cast in silver, and a large carved marble pill. One complete set of prints and sculptural objects were displayed in a specially constructed devotional case or reliquary. And, so struck was Damien Hirst with the church's interior that he has also produced three large new paintings made specifically to hang behind the altar at All Hallows.
Sokari Douglas Camp's The World is Richer centred around new work for the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery. The Wallspace exhibition featured a number of steel maquettes representing the artist's thinking towards a major public memorial in London's Hyde Park to mark the 2007 bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.- Sam Taylor-Wood's Pietà, Ascension and Prelude in Air brought together three distinctive film pieces that include biblical and religious references, and spiritual resonances. They explored ideas of presence and absence, performance and vulnerability. The first two films made direct reference to traditional, western Christian iconography. The third presented a musician who is totally engaged with the Bach prelude he is playing, but he is performing the work without his cello. The music and the man are palpably present; the instrument that links the two is absent.
- For Epiphany Wallspace gathered together 15 contemporary, traditional iconographers who live and work in the UK for what was the first exhibition to get the work of the very best iconographers in Britain together in one place. All the icons shown were contemporary but nonetheless were produced in the traditional manner, using authentic ancient designs and methods. The exhibition was timely, given the current revival of interest in icons and their increasing appearance in cathedrals and parish churches across the country.
- In Memória Roubada (Stolen Memories) Ana Maria Pacheco, previously Associate Artist at the National Gallery, showed a dramatic 2-piece work for the first time. Her powerful and disturbing painted wooden sculptures Memória Roubada I and II confronted ideas of displaced people and severed cultures - results of the colonisation of Brazil.
- Visionaries: working in the margins was Wallspace's exploration of the work of visionary painters from Stanley Spencer to the Chapman Brothers arranged so that visitors were 'led' through the work from 20th to 21st century. The paintings looked stunning in the church, setting up dialogues between the artists and across a time span of 85 years.
- The Collection showed highlights and new works from the Methodist collection of modern and contemporary art. In the early 1960s John Gibbs, an art collector and Methodist layman, realising that many contemporary artists were concerned with themes from the life of Christ, decided to create a collection of such work. With the help of Methodist minister Douglas Wollen, he acquired paintings and reliefs, which became the core of the Methodist Church Collection of Modern Christian Art – described as ‘the best denominational collection of modern art outside the Vatican’.
- Commission: An exhibition of contemporary art in British churches took the story of commissioning contemporary art for British churches up to the present day. Starting with Henry Moore’s remarkable, and at the time highly controversial, altar for St Stephen Walbrook, the exhibition highlighted the work of 14 artists who have taken on the challenge of a permanent work for a religious space. Major recent commissions for the Lumen Centre URC church and St Martin in the Fields London, and Tracey Emin’s neon artwork for Liverpool Anglican Cathedral were all represented.
Low - Weight of Water.
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