Seizure by Roger Hiorns, re-opens in London

With flaming street drains, grinded up aircraft engines and Toyota engines made to look like brains included in his eclectic oeuvre – British artist Roger Hiorns is anything but standard.

Hiorns uses unusual materials to effect surprising transformations on found objects and urban situations. Fire emerges from storm drains, perfume permeates metal surfaces, and copper sulphate crystals colonise industrial objects.

SEIZURE was Hiorns’ most ambitious work to date and his first major sculptural project within an urban site, and it marked a radical shift in scale and context in his work. The artist encouraged the growth of an unexpected crystal form within a low-rise late-modernist development near the Elephant & Castle in south London.

75,000 litres of copper sulphate solution were pumped into the council flat to create a strangely beautiful and somewhat menacing crystalline growth on the walls, floor, ceiling and bath of this abandoned dwelling.

After the project opened, 151 - 189 Harper Rd became a site of pilgrimage. Every day hundreds of people made their way across the capital to this anonymous council flat near the Elephant & Castle.

SEIZURE was commissioned by Artangel and the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, in association with Channel 4. The work was selected through the Jerwood/Artangel Open, a new commissioning initiative for the arts, which was launched in the summer of 2006 in association with Channel 4 and Arts Council England.

This project is supported by Arts Council England, Artangel International Circle, Special Angels and The Company of Angels

Roger Hiorns: SEIZURE
151 - 189 Harper Rd, London SE1
September - November 2008

Then reopened from 23 July 2009
Open Thursday - Saturday 11am - 7pm
Sundays 11am - 5pm
Closed Monday - Wednesday

Entry is free and booking is not required