The Hunterian will host the first solo exhibition in Scotland by Turner Prize winning artist Elizabeth Price. Referencing and employing never before exhibited archival material, the commission will focus on the textile heritage of Glasgow’s industrial age and in particular Stoddard International Plc and James Templeton & Co. Ltd, world-famous carpet manufacturers based in Renfrewshire and Glasgow. The exhibition opens to the public from 11 November 2022 – 16 April 2023.
UNDERFOOT is being developed in partnership with The Hunterian, Panel, Fiona Jardine (The Glasgow School of Art) and Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh. Working with these partners, Price will create an ambitious new moving image work and bespoke textile piece – the artist’s first in this medium – both of which have been commissioned by The Hunterian for its permanent collection. The textile piece also marks Price’s first major commission in a medium other than video in over five years.
Carpet designs, industrial machinery and architectural interiors will all feature within the moving image work UNDERFOOT and the textile piece, SAD CARREL will take the form of a hand-tufted rug. Though it reflects the process of its production in largely abstract ways, a recurring vinyl record motif is a key point of connection to the themes of the moving image work.
Price said: “As an artist working in digital media, I am also really fascinated by the shared technical histories of woven textiles and computing, and most of the industrialised carpet production of Templetons directly employed jacquard technologies, or processes derived from the Jacquard loom. Understanding the relation between carpets and data in this way, perhaps also offers ways to think about the realm or terrain they visualise: related to the creation of digital or virtual worlds. But, I am always also interested in the political and social histories and/impacts of cultural artefacts, and this is why part of the project focuses upon the use of carpet in civic and public space – specifically the Mitchell Library with its intensely coloured and patterned carpets, which have unexpected psychedelic effect. If carpets imagine another space, what space was/is imagined here?”
Elizabeth Price is an artist who creates powerful, accessible and innovative works that address social history. Her 2012 Turner Prize-winning work, The Woolworths Choir of 1979, stitched together news footage of a fatal fire in a Manchester branch of Woolworth’s with a TV performance by the Shangri-Las and digital animations analysing the cultural and political relationships between the two, to profoundly moving effect. Throughout her oeuvre, Price creates narrative works that feature historic artefacts and documents, often of marginal significance or derogated value. Her selection and treatment of them is shaped by a politics of gender and social class and she often uses historical material to consider and give expression to the adjacent blind spots, oversights and erasures of particular archives and museum collections.
UNDERFOOT was developed by Price’s 2020 Research Fellowship with the University of Glasgow Library that facilitated access to the archives of the Stoddard and Templeton carpet and textile factories, held within the University Archives and Special Collections and which encompasses thousands of design sketches, photos, books, journals and carpet pieces. Stoddard International Plc and James Templeton & Co. Ltd were world-famous carpet manufacturers based in Renfrewshire and Glasgow respectively, operational during the 19th and 20th century. The artist looked at the Stoddart Templeton pattern books and also at photographic records which showed industrial manufacturing processes. A particular interest was in the way these framed the bodies of workers themselves, often showing them only partially, as working or gesturing limbs.
UNDERFOOT is funded by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland with support from The Glasgow School of Art and Kingston University.
Alongside the exhibition of new work by Price, The Hunterian and Glasgow School of Art will present a two-day symposium in March 2023 as well as a public programme of talks and events during the run of the exhibition, aimed at bringing new audiences to The Hunterian for the first time.
Dominic Paterson, Curator of Contemporary Art, The Hunterian, said, “The Hunterian is honoured to be working with our collaborators to bring new work by Elizabeth Price to our audiences. We are very grateful to receive Creative Scotland funding to support this project and are particularly excited that this public funding will enable Elizabeth to make an ambitious new body of work that will become part of The Hunterian’s permanent collection. This project has been developed through close collaboration with Panel, Dovecot and Fiona Jardine, and it was supported by a research fellowship at the University of Glasgow Library which gave Elizabeth access to the remarkable archival resources held there. UNDERFOOT is a key moment in our ongoing effort to make our exhibitions and collections more meaningful and relevant to audiences today. Elizabeth’s work considers major issues in contemporary culture: using digital animation, she has raised questions of power, gender, value and language in post-war history, often thinking in particular about how technology and culture intersect. In UNDERFOOT these themes will be explored through the specific context of the Stoddard Templeton archives, giving the project a profound connection to Glasgow and its heritage. We are thrilled that Elizabeth and our collaborators have been so committed to the project and can’t wait to share its results with our visitors in November.”
Catriona Duffy and Lucy McEachan of Panel said: “Panel is delighted to be working with Elizabeth Price, The Hunterian, Dovecot Tapestry Studio and Fiona Jardine of The Glasgow School of Art on this exciting new commission, investigating classified ideas of social space through design and making.”
Celia Joicey, Director of Dovecot in Edinburgh, said: “The exhibition is an outstanding opportunity for Dovecot Studios to explore Elizabeth Price’s thoughtful approach to creating art, craft and design with hand and machine processes. Price is a world-class contemporary artist and this commission will showcase art made in Scotland to an international audience.”
Fiona Jardine said: “I am thrilled to be working with Elizabeth Price, The Hunterian, Panel and Dovecot on UNDERFOOT, sharing expertise and resources. The Glasgow School of Art holds the Stoddard Templeton Design Library, actively used in teaching a new generation of students for whom Elizabeth’s powerful, intellectually curious approach will be inspirational. The opportunity to reflect on the legacies of local textile and manufacturing histories through this project is especially resonant today, as we reimagine what it means to inhabit and construct our social spaces.”
Press view 10th November, 9.30am to 12 noon at The Hunterian Art Gallery.
