Bloodlines (2022)

In her expansive film installation, Bloodlines, American artist Amie Siegel explores ideas of class and labour, and the relationship between private and public realms. Siegel follows the movement of paintings by English artist George Stubbs (1724-1806), from their homes in aristocratic country estates and public institutions across the UK, to a Stubbs exhibition in a public gallery, and their subsequent return. As the film unfolds, Siegel draws out connections between her subjects and those of the paintings. People, property, animals and objects move between the real and the represented, creating a mirror of human, equine and artistic bloodlines, and highlighting both lineages of ownership and the constructs of image-making itself. Without voice-over or narration, Siegel’s intimate camerawork, her signature, carefully composed tracking shots and deft, associative editing reveal networks of meaning in subtle and poetic ways. Offering a window into the world of cultural heritage, Bloodlines exposes structures of ownership and inherited wealth which continue to shape British society today.

Bloodlines is the first work by renowned artist Amie Siegel to join the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) collection and significantly enriches their holdings of contemporary international art. It finds a fitting home in the Modern and Contemporary collection at National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) which spans the early twentieth century to the present day, including works across all media by artists such as Wangechi Mutu, Peter Doig, Jenny Holzer, Agnes Martin, Ellen Gallagher, Michael Armitage, Louise Bourgeois, Ed Ruscha.

Siegel’s work is among the most ambitious moving image works in the growing collection of time-based media, which features film and video installations by artists such as Ed Atkins, Douglas Gordon, Johan Grimonprez, Torsten Lauschmann, Nashashibi/Skaer, Bruce Nauman, Elizabeth Price, Charlotte Prodger, and Bill Viola, amongst others. Many of the themes that Siegel raises in Bloodlines resonate with NGS’s wider historic collection, as well as with the status as a public institution and custodian of cultural heritage, and a place where art is both cared for and viewed.

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