EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED IN LIFE THE POINT IS TO KNOW IT AND TO UNDERSTAND IT

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Downing Street

From a photographic series of the 1990s, this photograph by Gillian Wearing depicts one of several members of the British public who she randomly invited to write down what they felt or thought at the moment of asking. The philosophical message displayed here has an air of revelatory self-help, presented cheerfully by a young man. Other works in the series feature a city banker declaring ‘I’m desperate’; and a policeman revealing ‘Help’. Wearing’s works capture the constant hum of emotion and anxiety that lie beneath the surface of ‘normal’ life.

Born in Birmingham in 1963, Gillian Wearing studied at Chelsea School of Art and Design before attending Goldsmiths College where she was associated with the ‘Young British Artists’ or ‘YBA’ generation. Since then, Wearing has gained international recognition, winning the Turner Prize in 1997. A major retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2012 later toured to Düsseldorf and Munich in 2013. In 2017, the National Portrait Gallery held the exhibition ‘Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask’ that explored shared issues of identity and gender. Wearing’s sculpture of Millicent Fawcett was unveiled in Parliament Square, London, in 2018 to mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act of 1918.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

photograph (as object name), C-type photograph

Artist

Gillian Wearing (1963 - )

Title

EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED IN LIFE THE POINT IS TO KNOW IT AND TO UNDERSTAND IT

Series Title

Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say

Edition

6/10

Date

1992-3

Medium

C-type photographic print

Dimensions

height: 12 cm, width: 80 cm

Acquisition

Presented via the Government Art Collection / Outset fund, December 2017

Provenance

Maureen Paley

GAC number

18734