A Message

2014
Neon Sign


Install dimensions approximately:
40cm H x 2300cm L

Images 1-5: © Tim Etchells and Hugo Glendinning
Images 6-8: Courtesy of the artist, Kunsthalle Wien and photographer - Kunst-Dokumentation.com

Like several of Etchells’ neons, A Message proposes an open-ended thought-experiment, addressing the viewer directly and boldly, to create a general scenario in which the content is left open for a unique personal response. The full phrase of the work ‘A Message to Yourself from the Past, when you believed in Different Things’ opens the idea of a communication between different (past/present) versions of the viewer, framing an imagined dialogue about what might have changed.

About Tim Etchells’ neon and LED works
Etchells’ neon and LED pieces often draw on his broader fascinations as an artist, writer and performance maker, exploring contradictory aspects of language – the speed, clarity and vividness with which it communicates narrative, image and ideas, and at the same time its amazing propensity to create a rich field of uncertainty and ambiguity.

Through simple phrases spelt out in neon, LED and other media, Etchells strives to create miniature narratives, moments of confusion, awkwardness, reflection and intimacy in public and gallery settings. Encountering the neon sign works, in the streets of a city or in the space of a white cube gallery, the viewer becomes implicated in a situation that’s not fully revealed, or a linguistic formulation that generates confusion or ambiguity. As often in Etchells’ work, in the neons the missing parts of the picture are as important as the elements that are present. Invoking a story, or projecting an idea out-of-context, the work invites us in, but into what exactly we can’t be sure.

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