Autobituary was Anne Bean’s second exhibition for Matt’s Gallery and turned to the artist’s early performance work, displaying on 30 video monitors the re-staging of original performances made by the artist from 1969-1974.
Revealing a practice that spans performance, sculpture, drawing, text and sound, the re-formed performances – Shadow Deeds – explored weight and weightlessness, time and duration, surface and form, the body, the object and representation. Re-forming intuited and remembered actions, Anne wove together works which stand alone as vital physical performances and as ‘shadow deeds’ explore the processes of making, experiencing and viewing.
Autobituary: Shadow Deeds is a visually rich book of images and text produced in conjunction with this exhibition. It is a book within a book, comparing two sets of photographic ‘evidence’ from two series of almost identical performances made years apart. It contains three newly commissioned essays by Guy Brett, Sally O’Reilly and Miria Swain, and a DVD of Anne Bean’s Shadow Deeds performances. Autobituary : Shadow Deeds is published by Matt’s Gallery in association with Artsadmin and firstsite, Colchester and is available to buy from the Artsadmin Shop.