Big Ben 2012

'Dulles (Capital)' by Sarah Morris is a series of nine colour screenprints in each of which white diagonal and horizontal lines intersect blocks of vibrant colour, creating vertiginous sensations. The grid patterns and asymmetrical blocks of colour recall the lines and façades of urban skyscrapers. The title of the series alludes to the International Airport Dulles in Washington DC, named after John Foster Dulles, the U.S. diplomat who served as US Secretary of State from 1953 until 1959. 

Since the mid-1990s, Morris’s practice in abstract painting and filmmaking has explored the complex psychology of international cities and urban spaces. Her works derive from a close analysis of architectural details, combined with a critical sensitivity to what she describes as the ‘urban, social and bureaucratic typologies’ of cities and their protagonists. For this series, the reference to the International Airport at Dulles was particularly resonant to Morris, who acknowledged its function as an essential gateway and meeting point for U.S. and international politics. She observed: 

‘Architecture for me is not just a subject matter, but a social form. My images are not images of buildings; they imply the notion [of] how to position myself as an artist. I can learn from these forms and institutions. Two things involve all my interest: the desire to figure things out and the wish to codify and reduce things to an essence. I want to understand and then crack a system I am not necessarily part of.’

Based today in New York, Sarah Morris was born in Sevenoaks, Kent, and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Since the early 1990s she has exhibited solo shows internationally, including exhibitions in New York, Miami, Berlin, Vienna, London, Beijing and Rio de Janeiro. She has also participated in numerous important group exhibitions around the world, most recently in Desde el Salón (From the Living Room) at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2021) and It’s Urgent! curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist at Luma Arles in Arles, France (2020). Works by Morris are represented in major international public and corporate collections including Tate; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the UBS Collection, New York; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; MOCA, Los Angeles; and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.