Luhring Augustine is pleased to present two recent standing floor sculptures by the London-based artist Roger Hiorns. The sculptures feature engines coated with the organic compound copper sulphate, a chemical with an unpredictable reactive potential, which Hiorns has employed to transform mass-produced objects into aesthetic entities; a seemingly redemptive gesture exploring the opposition between the natural and man-made. By anthropomorphizing the objects through anatomical references, Hiorns continues to explore the transposable relationship between man and manufactured product in his sculptures, reducing the human figure into representative signs and totems.
Roger Hiorns was born in Birmingham, England in 1975. He has been featured in exhibitions at institutions throughout Europe and the Americas, including the Venice Biennale; MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY; Tate Modern, London; Hammer Museum of Art at UCLA, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and De Hallen, Haarlem, the Netherlands. Hiorns’ work is included in institutional collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; and Tate Modern, London. In 2009, Hiorns was nominated for the Turner Prize for his critically acclaimed work, Seizure, a massive crystallization within the interior of a flat in a condemned South London council estate. In 2011, Seizure was acquired by the Arts Council Collection and is currently on a ten-year loan for exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Yorkshire, England.
