Grundy Art Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, Victoria Gallery & Museum, Walker Art Gallery, Whitworth Art Gallery
The Sculpture Fund supported by one of the Contemporary Art Society’s Patrons Cathy Wills, will provide five museums in the North West with the opportunity to work together over a period of five years to research and then to acquire a group of sculptural works to develop their existing collections.
Following two research trips over the summer in Liverpool and Manchester and then in London, Haroon Mirza‘s work A Sleek Dry Yell (2008), was selected as the first purchase. Mirza, who is based in Sheffield, won the Northern Art Prize in 2010 and this summer won the Silver Lion Award for best newcomer at the 54th Venice Biennale. Solo exhibitions this year include those at Chisenhale, London and Spike Island, Bristol.
Haroon Mirza’s works appear at first to be a chaotic arrangement of found furniture and electronic bits and pieces. Within these assemblages however the order is clarified as the viewer becomes aware of how each element combines to create and generate an audio composition. Mirza attempts to isolate the perpetual distinctions between noise, sound and music and explores the possibility of the visual and acoustic as one singular aesthetic form. These ideas are examined through the sculptural installations that include house-hold electronics, found or constructed video footage and existing artworks made by other artists. The subject matter of his work pivots around socio-economic systems such as religious faith or club culture and their relationship to music.