Invoking both physical and emotional notions of high temperature in its text and in the vivid red of standard neon, Etchells’ Heated Discussions stages a play between the semantic content of the phrase it uses and the visual/material qualities of the work itself. While our assumptions about the object are playfully shifted in this way, we are also invited into the sorts of unresolved questions about its meaning typical of Etchells’ neon and other fragmentary text-works. Reading the phrase, we are left unsure as to who might be having said discussions and what they might be about, what sphere they are happening in (domestic, political or otherwise) and why their temperature might be escalated in the way described. The piece also offers a wry nod to the fact that, as viewers contemplate and then share thoughts about the work, they may well find themselves immersed in their own sets of heated discussions.

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.