For millennia, the image and idea of the cave has exerted an enduring pull on artists. It has even been argued that the cave was the earliest studio and the first museum. Following the 19th-century discoveries of rock paintings, caves became imagined as spaces of revelation and fantasy, providing clues to our collective impulse to produce images. After World War II, artists came to associate the cave with the primordial creative space, with a bunker-like refuge from the atomic era, and even with the dream of a truly underground cinema. Today, in an age of ecological breakdown, they are portals to the deep past and troubled futures, places where species and millennia intermingle.
Mapping both specific sites and imaginary underworlds, Hollow Earth considers why and how so many artists, musicians and filmmakers have been drawn below. Organised in collaboration with Hayward Gallery Touring, the exhibition brings together painting, sculpture, photography, archives and architectural proposals, film and music from the last 50 years, with a number of new commissions.
Exhibition tours:
Sat 24 Sep 2022 – Sun 22 Jan 2023
Nottingham Contemporary
7 Apr 2023 – 9 Jul 2023
The Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork
23 Sep 2023 – 7 Jan 2024
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
