Abigail Lane - Zoo 1994-2017: Stockholm

In conjunction with Andréhn-Schiptjenko’s 25th anniversary, the autumn season 2017 is devoted to Future Revisited, a review of the past to glimpse the future. In the third exhibition on this theme, Abigail Lane will present an exhibition centered round her video work Never Never Mind, one of the works initially produced for Lane’s first exhibition in the gallery in 1997.

The show, comprising video, embroideries, objects, wallpaper and digital prints, springs from the numerous animal works Abigail Lane has made over the years. In most cases the depiction of animals, alongside other imagery and objects, has been an indication of psychological conditions. Almost all her animals are trapped: by the bondage of harness or wraps, weight of cover, the limitations of screen or frame. They are caught in the light and in the web of their structures, and so they are forming a zoo of neurological fragments. Almost all however have some glimmer of redemption – a claw cracks the surface of the paper, the eyes cut through to make a connection, or the sacrifice ensures an afterlife of sorts. And if not, repetition will keep them going.

Never Never Mind is a video work that is projected as a continuous loop. Originally shot in film it shows a sequence of pigeons flying in and out of the image frame; sometimes perched on its bottom edge for a moment, only to be pushed off by another bird; sometimes hurled into the white background. It is shot in black and white and edited in a rough fast way, producing a nervous effect. Its repetition and soundtrack, made by the Gregory Flickner Quintet, give a hypnotic quality, at first comic but as it progresses, a darkness develops. The work was first shown at Andréhn-Schiptjenko in 1997 and later at Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, and at Victoria Miro, London, in 1998. The work was also shown in Trance at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1998 and in Mayday at the Centre d’Art in Neuchatel Switzerland, 1999. The work is now re-presented as a 3-projection installation.

Also on view is For His Own Good, a large printed mural. The work, depicting a dog wearing a harness and muzzle, a constraint conditioned by the birth classification of the animal, was initially produced as a print edition for the group exhibition Images of Masculinity at Victoria Miro, London in 1995. My God is an image of a man-size Aardvark, rearing up on its back legs, manipulated as to resemble something mythical, the claw of the beast seemingly breaking the surface of the print.

Abigail Lane emerged as part of the YBA generation of artists when in 1988 she and fellow students such as Damien Hirst, Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas co-organized the legendary Freeze exhibition showcasing their own work while students at Goldsmiths’ College. Lane has exhibited extensively and has had solo shows at various institutions including the ICA, London and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Her work has been included in group shows at major venues such as Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; The ICA, Boston; The Hayward Gallery, London; Magasin III, Stockholm; Sammlung Goetz, Munich; Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Royal Academy, London; and the Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg.