The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill On Sea is showing the first major retrospective of the artist, writer and film-maker Ian Breakwell (1943-2005) best known for his Diary works, his contribution to the avant-garde art scene of the 1970s and 1980s and his pioneering work in film, television and video. With over fifty works in all media, along with tours, talks, film screenings and related events in the auditorium, the exhibition reveals an outstanding series of rarely shown and never-exhibited works from the 1990s and 2000s that truly place Breakwell as one of the most significant artists of his generation.
Keep Things As They Are takes you through Breakwell’s remarkable career decade by decade. It starts with the early experimental works he made after leaving Derby College of Art including Growth (1969-73) and The Kill (1969), through key works from the 1970s and 1980s to The Other Side (2002) a double-screen video installation that used the architecture of the De La Warr Pavilion as both its setting and subject. Accompanied by a gentle sound track of the sea, overlaid with a fragment of Schubert’s Nocturne in E Major, it is a slow motion of elderly couples from the local community waltzing on the balcony against the sunset. The film was described as ‘utterly compelling’ and ‘incredibly beautiful’ By Dale McFarland in Frieze, May 2002. The work was later acquired by the Tate and has been exhibited nationwide.
This show is on until 13 Jan 2013.
Its great to see Ian Breakwell get this show but a pity its after his death. I grew up in Derby and one of the first works I ever noted down as one I liked in Derby art shows was an abstract by Ian B. called ‘Brownskin Sugarplum. ‘