In 2019 Outset x MAZZOLENI supported Cathy Wilkes' exhibition for the British Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale.
Cathy Wilkes was the 22nd artist to present a solo exhibition in the British Pavilion, which in 2019 was curated by Dr Zoe Whitley. La Biennale di Venezia, 58th International Art Exhibition, titled May You Live in Interesting Times, was curated by Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery, London, and opened to the public on Saturday 11th May 2019 at the Giardini and Arsenale venues.
Through the measured process of creating her works, Wilkes experiments with all kinds of media and materials, and collects treasures and ingredients. Production-or what we see in the end is the accumulation of all of these constituent parts. Her work recalls inchoate visions of interiors and places of loss and meditates on the nature of love and the coexistence of life and death. Her work also shows the disappearance and dematerialisation of life and the absence and anonymity of the author. Her works, which are all Untitled, render us all non-initiates; together we have equal capacity.
Cathy Wilkes (b. 1966, Dundonald, Belfast, lives and works in Glasgow, UK) graduated with a BA from The Glasgow School of Art in 1988, and completed her MFA at the University of Ulster, Belfast in 1992. Wilkes has produced an outstanding and unique body of work spanning 25 years, she is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential artists working in the UK today. In 2016, she was the inaugural recipient of the Maria Lassnig Prize and presented the largest solo exhibition of her work to date at MoMA PS1, New York (2017-2018). Wilkes was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2008. She represented Scotland in the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005 as part of the exhibition ‘Selective Memory’, and was featured in ‘The Encyclopedic Palace’, the 55th Venice Biennale’s central exhibition in 2013.
Selected solo exhibitions include: Yale Union, Portland (2018); MoMA PS1, New York (2017-2018); Xavier Hufkens, Brussels (2017); The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2016); Tate Liverpool, touring to LENTOS Kunstmuseum, Linz and Museum Abteiberg, Möenchengladbach (2015 - 2016); Tramway, Glasgow (2014); Xavier Hufkens, Brussels (2013); The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2012); ‘I Give You All My Money’, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Chicago (2012); Gesellschaft Für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen (2011); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2011); Kunstverein München e.V., Munich (2011); Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2011); and ‘Mummy’s Here’, Studio Voltaire, London (2009).
Selected group exhibitions include: ‘A Slight Ache’, Chapter, Cardiff (2018); ‘FOOD - Ecologies of the Everyday’, the 13th Fellbach Triennial of Small-Scale Sculpture, Fellbach (2016); ‘Mommy’, Yale Union, Portland (2015); ‘The Great Mother’ (curated by Massimiliano Gioni) Palazzo Reale, Milan (2015); ‘The Human Factor’, The Hayward Gallery, London (2014); ‘The Encyclopedic Palace’, 55th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2013); ‘Studio 58: Women Artists in Glasgow Since WWII’, Mackintosh Museum, The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow (2012); ‘Abstract Resistance’, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis (2010); ‘Selective Memory’, Scotland + Venice, 51st International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2005); ‘Selective Memory’ was subsequently exhibited at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2005).
