{{Short description|English filmmaker, installation artist, sculptor, video artist and lecturer}} {{Use British English|date=December 2020}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Lucy Gunning | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1964|06|01|df=y}} | birth_place = Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England | citizenship = United Kingdom | alma_mater = {{Plainlist| * West Surrey College of Art and Design * Falmouth School of Art * Goldsmiths' College }} | occupation = {{Plainlist| * Filmmaker * Installation artist * Sculptor * Video artist }} | years_active = 1993–present | awards = Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Visual Arts (2004) }} '''Lucy Gunning''' (born 1 June 1964) is an English filmmaker, installation artist, sculptor, video artist and lecturer in fine art at the Chelsea College of Arts. Her works cross various media such as archival investigation, book-making, installation, performance, photography and video and her works are included in various public collections. Gunning was resident at various art institutions and won multiple awards for her works.
==Early life and education== Gunning was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.<ref name="GNGBio" /> She graduated from the West Surrey College of Art and Design with a diploma in foundation studies in 1984.<ref name="GNGBio">{{cite web|title=Lucy Gunning|url=https://www.greenenaftaligallery.com/attachment/en/53da626f69921a805e010656/TextOneColumnWithFile/5490b7cea1c138202da7d8b6|publisher=Greene Naftali Gallery|access-date=10 December 2020}}</ref> From 1984 to 1987, she studied at the Falmouth School of Art,<ref name="TFCBio">{{cite web|title=Lucy Gunning|url=https://thefalmouthconvention.com/speakers-3/lucy-gunning|access-date=10 December 2020|publisher=The Falmouth Convention|archive-date=26 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200926074909/https://thefalmouthconvention.com/speakers-3/lucy-gunning|url-status=live}}</ref> graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sculpture.<ref name="GroveMusicEntry">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Cross|first=Andrew|title=Gunning, Lucy|url=https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000097253|encyclopedia=Grove Art Online|date=27 March 2001|doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T097253|isbn=978-1-884446-05-4|access-date=10 December 2020|url-access=subscription}}{{Grove Art subscription}}</ref><ref name="MGBio">{{cite web|title=Lucy Gunning|url=https://www.mattsgallery.org/artists/gunning/exhibition-1.php|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170820234704/http://www.mattsgallery.org/artists/gunning/exhibition-1.php|archive-date=20 August 2017|access-date=10 December 2020|publisher=Matt's Gallery}}</ref> Gunning was named the recipient of the 1987 Granada Foundation Prize, the Falmouth School of Art Sculpture Award and was part of the Whitworth New Contemporaries.<ref name="MGBio" /> She later moved to London, where she created a series of video works,<ref name="GroveMusicEntry" /> and attended Goldsmiths' College between 1992 and 1994.<ref name="TFCBio" /> She left Goldsmiths' with a Master of Fine Arts degree.<ref name="GroveMusicEntry" />
==Career== In 1993, she made the video film ''Climbing Around My Room'' and ''The Horse Impressionists'' the following year; both films lasted 7{{1/2}} minutes and earned her critical praise.<ref name="CASArticle">{{cite web|last=Crofton|first=Marcus|date=8 April 2020|title=#CASathome: Climbing Around My Room, by Lucy Gunning|url=https://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/news/cas-news/lucy-gunning/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201207164141/https://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/news/cas-news/lucy-gunning/|archive-date=7 December 2020|access-date=10 December 2020|publisher=Contemporary Art Society}}</ref> Gunning was awarded £1,000 for winning the BT New Contemporaries Award in 1994,<ref>{{cite journal|title=Appointments/commissions|url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A262786551/GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=GPS&xid=bfe179a7|journal=Women's Art Magazine|date=May–June 1994|number=58|page=34|access-date=10 December 2020|via=Gale Academic OneFile|url-access=subscription|archive-date=11 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201211072250/https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&u=wikipedia&id=GALE{{!}}A262786551&v=2.1&it=r&sid=GPS&asid=bfe179a7|url-status=live}}</ref> and the LAB Individual Artists Award two years later.<ref name="GNGBio" /><ref name="MGBio" /> Her next work was ''Malcolm, Lloyd, Angela, Norman, Jane'' in 1997, in which she filmed those with speech impediments choreographed across five individual monitors. Gunning followed up by making ''Untitled'' in 1999.<ref name="GroveMusicEntry" /> During 2000, she received the LAB Visual Arts Fund: Artists, and won the DAAD award for residency at Westfälischer Kunstverein, Munster the following year. In 2001, Gunning did a six-month residency period at the British School at Rome through the Rome Scholarship.<ref name="MGBio" />
She subsequently had a three-month residency period as artist-in-residence at Spike Island, Bristol in 2003, where she created two site-specific films.<ref name="GuardianSep03">{{cite news|last=Lack|first=Jessica|date=20 September 2003|title=Preview exhibitions: Lucy Gunning Bristol|page=34|work=The Guardian|url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A108015922/GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=GPS&xid=74e50c5e|url-status=live|url-access=subscription|access-date=10 December 2020|via=Gale General OneFile|archive-date=11 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201211072250/https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&u=wikipedia&id=GALE{{!}}A108015922&v=2.1&it=r&sid=GPS&asid=74e50c5e}}</ref> Gunning's first film there called ''Quarry'' captured a working quarry where an explosion of stone was recorded on a four-minute loog and the second being a geologist showing the viewer their crystal and rock collection in a room.<ref name="GuardianSep03" /><ref name="NYTimes2004">{{cite news|last=Johnson|first=Ken|authorlink=Ken Johnson (art critic)|title=Art in Review; Lucy Gunning|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/arts/art-in-review-lucy-gunning-quarry.html|work=The New York Times|date=9 July 2004|access-date=10 December 2020|archive-date=28 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150528024813/http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/arts/art-in-review-lucy-gunning-quarry.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2004, she made the video installation ''Esc'' that was divided into three monitors.<ref name="AFSummer2004">{{cite journal|last=Schwabsky|first=Barry|authorlink=Barry Schwabsky|title=Lucy Gunning: matt's gallery|url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A118445897/GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=GPS&xid=4cb8e27e|journal=Artforum International|date=Summer 2004|volume=42|number=10|page=264|access-date=10 December 2020|via=Gale In Context: Biography|url-access=subscription|archive-date=11 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201211072250/https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&u=wikipedia&id=GALE{{!}}A118445897&v=2.1&it=r&sid=GPS&asid=4cb8e27e|url-status=live}}</ref> Gunning won the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Visual Arts in the same year,<ref name="TFCBio" /> and was resident at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada.<ref name="MGBio" /> She created the multi-faceted work ''The Archive, The Event and its Architecture'' inspired by her experience of being Wordsworth Trust's artist-in-residence and the intervention ''RePhil'' with the Philbrook Museum of Art collection in 2007.<ref name="TFCBio" />
From 2012 to 2014, Gunning was resident at the Kenneth Armitage Foundation.<ref name=TBEntry>{{cite web|title=Lucy Gunning / My Heart is like a Singing Bird|url=https://thebower.org.uk/lucy_gunning.html|publisher=The Bower|access-date=10 December 2020|archive-date=24 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924151336/https://thebower.org.uk/lucy_gunning.html|url-status=live}}</ref> She is a senior lecturer in fine art at the Chelsea College of Arts,<ref name="TBEntry" /><ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Lucy Gunning|url=http://52.71.27.166/research/ual-staff-researchers/a-z/lucy-gunning/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201211072250/http://52.71.27.166/research/ual-staff-researchers/a-z/lucy-gunning/|archive-date=11 December 2020|access-date=10 December 2020|publisher=University of the Arts London}}</ref> and won the 2018–19 Lorne Trust Scholarship.<ref name="TBEntry" /> Gunning researches Georges Bataille's notion of l'informe, analysis of the binary thought of form verses content and the social implications of formlessness, in relation to behaviour and location.<ref name=":0" /> She has undertaken solo and group exhibitions of her work around the world throughout her career,<ref name="TFCBio" /><ref name="MGBio" /> and resides and works in West London.<ref name="Indy2013">{{cite news|last=Wright|first=Karen|title=In The Studio: Lucy Gunning, artist|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/studio-lucy-gunning-artist-8609975.html|work=The Independent|date=9 May 2013|access-date=10 December 2020|archive-date=11 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201211072321/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/studio-lucy-gunning-artist-8609975.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Gunning's works are held in the public collections of Arts Council England, the Centre Pompidou, the Contemporary Art Society, the Hayward Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama and the Tate.<ref name="GNGBio" />
==Analysis== Gunning's works crosses various media such as archival investigation, book-making, installation, performance, photography and video.<ref name="Indy2013" /> Marcus Crofton of Contemporary Art Society noted her works "ranges from documentary style filming of real-life subjects, to subjects that are structured and choreographed in order that she might film them."<ref name="CASArticle" /> Crofton says she puts the emphasis on individual and social group behaviours as well as "internal space / external space, habitable and inhabitable spaces, psychological space, and looking for spaces in between what already exists – and considering these in relation to the human condition."<ref name="CASArticle" /> An exhibitions director said of Gunning's works: "Lucy's work is all about desire and obsession" and that "she is not trying to make cinematography".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Wildman|first=David|date=3 November 1996|title=The video visions of Lucy Gunning|page=C13|work=Boston Globe|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/65005976/the-boston-globe-lucy-gunning-3/|url-status=live|url-access=subscription|access-date=10 December 2020|via=Newspapers.com|archive-date=11 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201211072250/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/65005976/the-boston-globe-lucy-gunning-3/}}</ref>
Andrew Cross in her entry in ''Grove Art Online'' wrote many of her videos reference video artists such as Bruce Nauman but "her focus on formal actions is overlaid by the complexities of metaphor and humour in situations that determine their own language and structure."<ref name="GroveMusicEntry" /> Cross noted that she gives attention to "the human voice and its elementary social role in our existence" and that her works "focus upon the voice in the realm of the sensual, the unconscious and the uncontrolled."<ref name="GroveMusicEntry" /> Jessica Lack of ''The Guardian'' wrote that Gunning "is not afraid of awkward situations, in fact her videos seem to thrive on them. Watching one of her social diaries is a little like being an interloper, her camera an indiscriminate voyeur of our lives."<ref name="GuardianApr04">{{cite news|last=Lack|first=Jessica|title=The Guide: Preview exhibitions: Lucy Gunning London|url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A115510602/GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=GPS&xid=b1ef853e|work=The Guardian|page=36|date=17 April 2004|access-date=10 December 2020|via=Gale General OneFile|url-access=subscription|archive-date=11 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201211072314/https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&u=wikipedia&id=GALE{{!}}A115510602&v=2.1&it=r&sid=GPS&asid=b1ef853e|url-status=live}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunning, Lucy}} Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century English women artists Category:21st-century English women artists Category:20th-century English educators Category:21st-century English educators Category:Academics of Chelsea College of Arts Category:Alumni of Falmouth University Category:Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Category:Alumni of the University for the Creative Arts Category:Artists from Newcastle upon Tyne Category:British art educators Category:British women art educators Category:English installation artists Category:English women sculptors Category:21st-century English women educators Category:20th-century English women educators