James Richards: To Replace a Minute’s Silence with a Minute’s Applause

Description

James Richards: To Replace a Minute’s Silence with a Minute’s Applause is the final of four unique monographs documenting four contemporary artist’s selections from Moscow’s V-A-C collection and their subsequent display at Whitechapel Gallery during 2014/2015.

Creating an immersive environment artist James Richards accompanies Francis Bacon’s Study for a Portrait with a sound installation of public silences – acts of mourning, remembrance, or suspenseful pauses in films. Singers inhale and pause before breaking into song while church bells fill the gallery with ambient sound.

As well as full-colour installation photography, the publication includes an interview with the artist, an essay by sound curator David Toop exploring the interactions between sound, silence and painting, and an essay by art historian Barbara Dawson on Francis Bacon’s Study for a Portrait (1953).