Dancing in Peckham

Gillian Wearing (1963 - )

master Betacam SP videotape

1994

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© Gillian Wearing courtesy Maureen Paley, London

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  • About the work
    Location
    Country: UK
    City: London
    Place: Government Art Collection

    Gillian Wearing's video "Dancing in Peckham" shows the artist dancing in the middle of a south-London shopping centre. Members of the public walk past, bemused by her behaviour or ignoring her completely, as she moves to the music of Nirvana and Gloria Gaynor, played only in her head. Wearing is interested in the boundaries of what might be considered "normal" behaviour and the lines between private and public. The idea for "Dancing in Peckham" came to Wearing when she saw a woman dancing wildly at the Royal Festival Hall in London, unaware that other people were mocking her.

  • About the artist
    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.
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  • Details
    Title
    Dancing in Peckham
    Edition
    One of an edition of 10.
    Date
    1994
    Medium
    master Betacam SP videotape
    Acquisition
    Purchased from Maureen Paley / Interim Art, November 1997
    GAC number
    M17286/1