Pope.L’s wide ranging practice spans writing, painting, performance, installation, sculpture and video, which will be explored across both the SLG’s Main Gallery and Fire Station. Hospital is the artist’s first solo exhibition in a London institution.
With roots in philosophy and theatre, Pope.L’s career since the 1970s has centred on society, politics and contemporary culture. The work often reveals contradictory and provocative themes in language, gender, race, economics and community.
Pope.L’s exhibition brings together a set of installations and interventions, all of which are reconfigurations of previous works. In the Main Gallery three large-scale wooden towers are in states of gradual collapse. They are a reworking of the towers on top of which the artist, wearing only a jock strap and covered in flour, sat on a toilet and consumed newspaper pages in his performance, Eating the Wall Street Journal, 2000. For this latest version Pope.L has removed the live performance element, shifting the focus to the dynamic of the toppling tower structures and viewers’ capacity to imagine what might have happened or what is still to come.
William Pope.L; b.1955, Newark, New Jersey) is an artist best known for his provocative performances and public installations. While centering on themes such as gender and race, his works explore the systems, conflicts, and beliefs inherent to our society and culture.
South London Gallery, 65–67 Peckham Road, London, SE5 8UH & The Fire Station Galleries, 82 Peckham Road, London, SE15 5LQ
21 NOV 2023 – 11 FEB 2024 Times: 11am – 6pm (except Wednesday: 11am – 9pm). Free Admission.
Website: https://www.southlondongallery.org/
