London-based arts organisation ArtAngel announced today that multidisciplinary artist Taryn Simon will bring her 2016 work An Occupation of Loss to London this April.
Originally staged at New York’s Park Avenue Armory, the project saw Simon bring professional mourners from some 30 countries to enact their native rites of grief and lamentation, many of which date back to pre-Christian and pre-Islamic eras. Every night for a week, the mourners would perform within a series of 11 concrete towers, created in collaboration with OMA. In typically meticulous fashion, Simon also documented the process of research, arranging appropriate visas for the performers to enter the United States, and rehearsal in a monograph, published by Hatje Cantz the following year.
The specifics of the London iteration remain shrouded in mystery. The venue has been announced as ‘a cavernous undiscovered space beneath Islington Green’, with the artist declining to release exact details or architectural photography ahead of time, so as to preserve an element of surprise for the first visitors. In lieu of the OMA towers, Simon is designing a series of sculptures to house the mourners, who hail from 11 countries including Azerbaijan, China, Russia and Venezuela.
Promised recitations include Albanian laments that excavate ‘uncried words’; Venezuelan rituals to safeguard the passage of the soul to the Milky Way Greek laments that weave together stories of life and afterlife and Yezidi performances that recount experiences of exile and displacement. ‘Loss yields an emotional space and a vulnerability in which individuals seem to operate without artifice,’ says the artist and erstwhile Wallpaper* Guest Editor (W*163).
‘I want to look at the potential of this space, and the mechanics of it – even the ways it can be programmed or performed.’ She adds that the project is about ‘how we mourn individually, nationally, globally – how organized religion, government or civic leadership guides and shapes mourning and how citizens are mobilized in those moments of loss.’
The London performance is a homecoming of sorts, seeing as the project began as a conversation between Simon and ArtAngel co-director Michael Morris in the British capital six years ago. ‘The enactment of mourning in this ambitious new work for London sees Simon turn a found site into a sonic instrument for the performance of grief, measuring losses beyond language,’ says Morris. In a country currently beset by social fracture and political uncertainty, the anxiety and catharsis of An Occupation of Loss will no doubt resonate.
Behind the scenes at Simon’s New York performance at Park Avenue Armory. Courtesy of the artist
Behind the scenes at Simon’s New York performance at Park Avenue Armory. Courtesy of the artist
Behind the scenes at Simon’s New York performance at Park Avenue Armory. Courtesy of the artist
Behind the scenes at Simon’s New York performance at Park Avenue Armory. Courtesy of the artist
Behind the scenes at Simon’s New York performance at Park Avenue Armory. Courtesy of the artist
INFORMATION
An Occupation of Loss will be on view 17 – 28 April. Entrance on Essex Road at the corner of Islington Green, London. Tickets are available through ArtAngel
-
All-In is the Paris-based label making full-force fashion for main character dressingPart of our monthly Uprising series, Wallpaper* meets Benjamin Barron and Bror August Vestbø of All-In, the LVMH Prize-nominated label which bases its collections on a riotous cast of characters – real and imagined
-
Maserati joins forces with Giorgetti for a turbo-charged relationshipAnnouncing their marriage during Milan Design Week, the brands unveiled a collection, a car and a long term commitment
-
Through an innovative new training program, Poltrona Frau aims to safeguard Italian craftThe heritage furniture manufacturer is training a new generation of leather artisans
-
‘Humour is foundational’: artist Ella Kruglyanskaya on painting as a ‘highly questionable’ pursuitElla Kruglyanskaya’s exhibition, ‘Shadows’ at Thomas Dane Gallery, is the first in a series of three this year, with openings in Basel and New York to follow
-
The art of the textile label: how British mill-made cloth sold itself to Indian buyersAn exhibition of Indo-British textile labels at the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru is a journey through colonial desire and the design of mass persuasion
-
Artist Qualeasha Wood explores the digital glitch to weave stories of the Black female experienceIn ‘Malware’, her new London exhibition at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, the American artist’s tapestries, tuftings and videos delve into the world of internet malfunction
-
Ed Atkins confronts death at Tate BritainIn his new London exhibition, the artist prods at the limits of existence through digital and physical works, including a film starring Toby Jones
-
Tom Wesselmann’s 'Up Close' and the anatomy of desireIn a new exhibition currently on show at Almine Rech in London, Tom Wesselmann challenges the limits of figurative painting
-
A major Frida Kahlo exhibition is coming to the Tate Modern next yearTate’s 2026 programme includes 'Frida: The Making of an Icon', which will trace the professional and personal life of countercultural figurehead Frida Kahlo
-
A portrait of the artist: Sotheby’s puts Grayson Perry in the spotlightFor more than a decade, photographer Richard Ansett has made Grayson Perry his muse. Now Sotheby’s is staging a selling exhibition of their work
-
From counter-culture to Northern Soul, these photos chart an intimate history of working-class Britain‘After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024’ is at Edinburgh gallery Stills
