Lisson Gallery

Allora & Calzadilla

10 October – 17 November 2007

Allora & Calzadilla

For their second exhibition at the Lisson Gallery, Allora & Calzadilla have developed a group of works that address ‘figures of speech’ in literal, metaphorical and ironic ways.

Sediments Sentiments (Figures of Speech), 2007, is the last in a trilogy of works that explore the interplay between militarism and sound in the context of today’s global state of war. The work consists of two large truncated forms, with tunnel- like passageways that intersect the sculptural masses. Made of foam and white plaster, they were conceived as 1:1 scale models of some future disaster - broken planes, masses of geological rock forms and subterranean tunnels are conjoined together in a manner that recalls the aftermath of an explosion or a natural cataclysm, whose colour can only be added by the events of a history yet to unfold.

These amorphous formations function as stages for a satirical dissection and re- interpretation of the leitmotivs, symbolism and emotional charge of political rhetoric. In fact, lying within the tunnels are four singers, performing in operatic style fragments of speeches by key actors in the global theatre of recent political history: from Martin Luther King and the Dalai Lama, to George Bush and Saddam Hussein.

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Works on view

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