‘Home’, Permindar Kaur
HS Projects is delighted to present ‘Home’, an exhibition of new and existing works by Permindar Kaur, surveying the artist’s continuing interest in the ‘public’ and ‘private’ and a common central question in her practice: ‘where is home?’.
Kaur presents a range of work from early in her career along with new works made specifically for this exhibition, including a major new sculpture, ‘Overgrown House’, 2020, a large steel structure, over 3 metres high with steel offshoots randomly growing around the fully grown house. Kaur makes viewers aware of the difference between the ‘private and public’ by abruptly converting this very public space into a bedroom in a private home. The central new work is ‘Untitled (Bed)’, 2020, a large steel sculpture, which upon closer inspection reveals a world of colourful creatures ‘lurking’ beneath it. These creatures are a conception of private thoughts and dreams, giving viewers a sense of domestic insecurities and vulnerabilities. In ‘Untitled (Small Table & Chairs)’, 2020, the artist removes these renderings of domestic furniture from their familiar context to challenge perceived notions of settlement and security associated with home.
Other works explore hierarchical structures at home and at work, looking at the unspoken, often hidden positions of power. One such work, ‘Tower’ 2014, a stack of seven chairs, each one smaller than the one on which it rests, together forming a tower over two meters high, reflecting how we have a ‘place’ in society. ‘Tall Chairs’, 1996 consists of two fabricated steel chairs each one over two meters in height with bizarre, seemingly mischievous yellow creatures, sitting, folded in on themselves, at the top of each chair. Playful as Kaur’s work might seem at first sight, it is also simultaneously capable of eliciting feelings of disquiet, unsettlement and vulnerability.
A new publication with critical texts by Prof Eddie Chambers (University of Texas) and Dr Alice Correia (co-chair of the Black British Art Research Group) is planned for publication in early 2021 to accompany the exhibition. The catalogue is supported by public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
‘Home’ is at Howick Place from December 2020 to July 2021.