Gillian Wearing
New Museum
235 Bowery
October 19, 2002–January 19, 2003
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
118 South 36th Street
September 1–December 14, 2003
Curated by Dominic Molon
Gillian Wearing’s best-known image is probably still the photo from 1992–93 of a businessman holding a self-penned sign that says I’M DESPERATE. Her first American retrospective, though, examines what came after—beginning with Sixty Minute Silence, 1996, which shows a group of police officers trying to freeze in a portrait pose as an hour ticks by, and ending with Broad Street, 2001, which documents an evening in a Birmingham nightclub. Wearing’s interest in local human dramas sets her apart from many of her YBA peers; says curator Dominic Molon, “I’m interested in her read of British culture—her work is so focused on Britain—and there’s an alternation of tragic stories and these sweet aspects of human behavior.”