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Sam Taylor-Wood
Sam Taylor-Wood makes photographs and films that examine, through highly charged scenarios, our shared social and psyschological conditions.
Taylor-Wood’s work examines the split between being and appearance, often placing her human subjects – either singly or in groups – in situations where the line between interior and external sense of self is in conflict. Her languid and silent film portrait of David Beckham, for example, which was shot in a single take, offers a serene alternative to this most intensively photographed celebrity. In Prelude in Air (2006) Taylor-Wood filmed a musician playing a piece of cello music by Bach, but the cello itself has been erased. Likewise, in Breach (Girl and Eunuch) (2001), a girl is portrayed sitting on the floor in the throes of grief, but the sound of her tears has been removed. In the celebrated film Still Life (2001), an impossibly beautiful bowl of fruit decays at an accelerated pace, creating a visceral momento mori. Taylor-Wood has also explored notions of weight and gravity in elegiac, poised photographs and films such as Ascension (2003) and a series of self-portraits (Self Portrait Suspended I - VIII) that depict the artist floating in mid air without the aid of any visible support. In her film The Last Century (2006), what appears to be a static image of a group of people slowly reveals itself to be a real, filmed take, timed to the length of a burning cigarette: the film is entirely static apart from the involuntary blinking, twitching and barely-visible breathing of four motionless actors, all arranged around a central figure as if in a group portrait painted by Rembrandt or Caravaggio. Recently, Taylor-Wood directed her first narrative short film, Love You More (2008), with a script by Patrick Marber.
Sam Taylor-Wood was born in London in 1967 and has had numerous group and solo exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (1997) and The Turner Prize (1998). Solo exhibitions include Kunsthalle Zurich (1997), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek (1997), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC (1999), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2000), Hayward Gallery, London (2002), State Russian Museum, St Petersburg (2004), MCA, Moscow (2004), BALTIC, Gateshead (2006), MCA Sydney (2006) MoCA Cleveland (2007) and the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston (2007).
More on Sam Taylor-Wood
| Artworks | |
 | Film works I 3 Images |
 | Film works II 4 Images |
 | Soliloquy works 2 Images |
 | Photographs I 4 Images |
 | Crying Men 4 Images |
 | Film works III 4 Images |
 | Self Portrait suspended series 4 Images |
 | Photographs II 4 Images |
 | Related Texts |
| CV | |
| Bibliography | |
| Sam Taylor-Wood by Ossian Ward | |
| Exhibitions | |
| Sam Taylor-Wood 24 Oct—29 Nov 2008 | |
| New Work 29 Oct—4 Dec 2004 | |
| Mute 23 Nov—12 Jan 2002 | |
| Travesty of a Mockery 1 Dec—20 Jan 1996 | |
| Editions | |
| Bound Edition of 100 | |
| Sergeant Wenninger and Me (printed 2008) | |
| Artist's Publications | |
| Crying Men 2004 | |
| Crying Men Limited Edition 2004 | |
| Sam Taylor-Wood 2002 | |
| Contact 2001 | |
 | Related Links |
| http://www.cmoa.org/interna... Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh | |
| http://www.guggenheim.org/e... Guggenheim Museum, New York | |
| http://www.mca.com.au/defau... Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney | |
| http://www.moma.org/exhibit... Museum of Modern Art, New York | |
| http://www.tate.org.uk/serv... Tate Online | |
 | Back to Artist Index |