2023 Commissions Programme

Chisenhale Gallery was founded by artists. The same experimental vision and spirit of possibility that changed an empty veneer factory and brewery warehouse into an art gallery, guides our work today. Our mission is to commission new works of art, supporting artists at every stage of project development, from concept to completion. The gallery has an award winning, 39-year history as one of London’s most innovative spaces for contemporary art. Building on this rich and varied history, we continue to place artists at the centre of everything we do.

Chisenhale Gallery’s Commissions Programme for 2023 comprises four new exhibitions by artists Ravelle Pillay, Laurie Kang, Benoît Piéron and Alia Farid. Spanning painting, photography, sculpture and textile, the programme addresses the body – its movements through space and time, and its physical, emotional and material imprints. As part of our commissioning process, a talks and events series is developed in conversation with each artist to extrapolate and amplify ideas underpinning their new works. In 2023 we will also release two new artist publications by Laurie Kang and Benoît Piéron as part of Chisenhale Books, continuing our new partnership with Hurtwood Press. 

Ravelle Pillay
February 23–April 23, 2023 

This marks Ravelle Pillay’s first large-scale solo exhibition, and first presentation in the UK. Working in painting, the Johannesburg-based artist’s practice evolves from a personal process of archiving, often drawing from found and family photographs to map life-making in the wake of mass migration. Simultaneously figurative and illusory, her artworks consider the material possibilities of the medium, offering paint as a mediation between past and present, memory and experience. Laying bare the displacement of indenture and the dehumanisation of Apartheid, Pillay’s paintings explore the way we remember things, whether it be history, ourselves, or the fragile formations of personal and collective memory. For her Chisenhale commission, Pillay will produce a series of oil paintings, ranging in size, situated within a wider installation that contemplates the colonial hauntings of bodies of water and botanical gardens. 

Laurie Kang
June 1–July 30, 2023

Laurie Kang’s interests lie in unstable, continuously sensitive materials which are functionally and metaphorically in flux. Rooted in an enduring concern with the body and the forces that shape it – political, affective and otherwise – recent works have utilised processes rooted in photographic innovation. Kang references biology, feminist theory and science fiction to stage ambitious, site-specific installations that refer to the formation of the self and the memories imprinted upon us. Chisenhale Gallery will present a major new commission and first solo exhibition in the UK by Kang – producing her most ambitious site-specific installation yet. Comprising a series of sculptures and architectural interventions, the commission will continue her interest in the body as process, shaped and reshaped by the structures that surround it. Kang’s first artist publication will be developed alongside the commission, published by Hurtwood Press.

Benoît Piéron
September 14–November 12, 2023

Benoît Piéron creates moments, installations and objects. His work untangles the sensuality of plants, the borders of the body and the temporality of waiting rooms. From cosmogonic cabins and patchwork tents, to hand drawn wallpapers and metabolised gardens, Pieron’s practice is an art of survival. Living with and through various illnesses, his work deals with the uncertainty of life, death and immunity. His practice draws on surrounding hospitals and medical environments for materials, reappropriating them to unlock other enchanting worlds free of binaries and boundaries. For his Chisenhale commission, Piéron will produce a new body of work that explores illness and hallucination as spaces of potential and abundance. Piéron’s first artist publication will be developed alongside the commission and published by Hurtwood Press.

Alia Farid
November 30, 2023–February 4, 2024

This will be Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican artist Alia Farid’s first exhibition in the UK. Working in film and sculpture, Farid gives visibility to less commonly recognized histories, often deliberately diminished by Western hegemony. Underpinning much of Farid’s work is an ongoing project that maps Arab and South Asian migrations to Latin America and the Caribbean. A growing tapestry and material archive that traces these shifts and movements forms the basis for Farid’s ambitious commission at Chisenhale Gallery. Much like her own heritage, Farid’s work brings seemingly disparate sites in relation to each other, creating a trans-regionalism that challenges national boundaries. Farid’s new work is a co-commission with The Power Plant, Toronto where it will be presented in Spring 2023 and CAC Passerelle, Brest where it will travel to after its presentation at Chisenhale Gallery. The wider research project is largely supported by the Creative Capital Award, which she received in 2022.
 

Chisenhale Gallery is a registered charity and part of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio. All of our exhibitions are free.

Chisenhale Gallery’s commission and production partners include The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto and CAC Passerelle, Brest.

The 2023 Commissions Programme is produced with support from the Chisenhale Gallery Commissions Fund.

Lead Supporters: Canada Council for the Arts, Goodman Gallery.

Headline Supporters: Henry Moore Foundation. 

Chisenhale Gallery’s current exhibition by Nikita Gale, IN A DREAM YOU CLIMB THE STAIRS, is on view until 16 October 2022.

For further information please contact: T +44 (0)20 8981 4518 / media [​at​] chisenhale.org.uk