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Installation: Ydessa Hendeles in London

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Ydessa Hendeles, ICA, From her wooden sleep..., installionContinuing Hendeles’s exploration of difference and diversity.

The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), in London, is currently presenting ‘From her wooden sleep…’, a major new work by the German-born Canadian artist-curator, Ydessa Hendeles.

In this work, Hendeles draws together disparate elements to compose a tightly choreographed tableau vivant.

Central to this installation is a remarkable and unique collection of 150 wooden artists’ manikins assembled by Hendeles over twenty years.

Made in a time range from 1520 to 1930 and in scale from palm-size to life-size, the manikins surround a lone figure that is standing exposed in their collective gaze.

The intense focus of the scenario suggests a community gathering – perhaps in a courtroom, or at an auction, an anatomy lesson or a drawing class.

From her wooden sleep… continues Hendeles’s exploration of difference and diversity, in particular of the way representation and distortion, appropriation and assimilation filtre group and individual identities.

The title of the show is taken from Florence Kate Upton’s best-selling 1895 children’s book, The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg, about the nocturnal adventures of two wooden peg dolls.

Created and named by Upton, the Golliwogg in this story was the first black protagonist in English picture books.

He became a much-loved character among children, and his far-reaching popularity was superseded only by the teddy bear’s.

He also bridged the gap between popular culture and high art by inspiring the most popular movement of Debussy’s Children’s Corner, a solo paino suite first performed in 1908.

In the mid-20th century, however, the character became a controversial symbol of racism, and the name became a racist insult.

Like earlier Hendeles curatorial compositions, From her wooden sleep… graphically realises her interest in the way crazes define culture and social dynamics – for better and for worse.

Hendeles is a pioneering exponent of curating as a creative artistic practice. Blurring the line between collector, curator and artist, she has fashioned her own distinctive space in the contemporary art world.

In 2003, Hendeles guest-curated Partners at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, a 16-gallery exhibition that included her own work, Partners (The Teddy Bear Project).

Built around an archive of typologies of family-album photographs and vitrines featuring photographs of teddy bears with their original owners, the project was remounted in Noah’s Ark by the National Gallery of Canada in 2004 and subsequently in 10,000 Lives, the 2010 Gwangju Biennale, South Korea.

Recent exhibitions include: Marburg! The Early Bird! at the Marburger Kunstverein in 2010; The Wedding (The Walker Evans Polaroid Project) at Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York in 2011; and THE BIRD THAT MADE THE BREEZE TO BLOW at Galerie Johann König in Berlin in 2012.

The ICA calls From her wooden sleep… ‘an extraordinary development in a singular career’.

Hendeles was born in 1948 in Marburg, Germany, to Polish-Jewish parents who had survived Auschwitz, and emigrated with her family to Toronto in 1951.

From her wooden sleep… can be seen at the ICA until 17 May. For times and how to get there, click here.

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