The Cerith Wyn Evans Poetry Jukebox

To celebrate the start of the Cerith Wyn Evans exhibition, we turned Gallery Two into a Poetry Jukebox this Saturday. The Poetry Jukebox is a unique live literature event, specially developed by De La Warr artist and writer Wendy Ann Greenhalgh for the season. The Jukebox allows Pavilion visitors to choose a poem on the theme of light, beauty and heat from our instant, online poem hunter - and then hand it over to Wendy and her team - for a personalised, live and unrehearsed performance inside the gallery.

Visitors picked poems as diverse as the beacons in the first poem of AE Housman's 'A Shropshire Lad' and Ken Nesbitt's light fearing father in 'I Think My Dad is Dracula!' And we ended the day with a performance of Cecelia Weir's 'Lights On, Lights Off' as the giant columns of Cerith Wyn Evans' S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E slowly turned themselves off and on.

"It really works," said one visitor. "They say a picture's worth a hundred words, but sometimes it's hard to know what something's saying, but the poems helped to say it."

The lyricism of Cerith Wyn Evans' work and the medium of poetry, are certainly a great match, and Saturday's Poetry Jukebox was very popular. How often do you get your own personalised poetry reading - performed just for you - after all? We'll be running the Poetry Jukebox again on Saturday May 19th - so if you missed it this weekend, then come along and join us next time. This event isn't just for poets, writers ... or grown-ups! Bring your kids along and let them choose a poem too!

Many thanks to poet Jac Cattaneo, who also joined Wendy to give readings on Saturday.

Cerith Wyn Evans opens

Cerith Wyn Evans' at DLWP exhibition opened last weekend to crowds of visitors and critical acclaim.

With a special opportunity to see Wyn Evans' new 'firework' piece, And if I don’t meet you no more in this worldThen I’ll, I’ll meet you in the next one And don’t be late, don’t be late, followed by music by DJ Princess Julia, a great evening was had by all and the Pavilion's Gallery spaces were revealed transformed.

Employing Cerith Wyn Evan’s ongoing investigation of architecture as a starting point and specifically curated as a response to the De La Warr Pavilion, this exhibition consists of three major installations and smaller new works dispersed throughout the building. Taking the entire Pavilion as an opportunity for installation, including our two gallery spaces and the roof-terrace, the exhibition also provides the impetus for a wider programme of related live art, music, performance and film during the season.

Visitors will see the De La Warr Pavilion’s Gallery spaces stripped back so that they are undivided for the first time. With all of the windows revealed, the installation in Gallery 1 explores the relationship between manmade and natural light, returning the building’s structure to its original purpose – as a space for visitors to experience and enjoy. Moving up through the building, Wyn Evans' recent spectacular light/heat column installation, S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E ('Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive’s overspill…') 2010, is installed in Gallery 2 to create an intensely glamorous environment with toxic overtones.

Described by the artist as “a love letter to the building”, the exhibition embodies recurrent themes within Evan’s art: code, language, text and an interrogation of aesthetics.

Cerith Wyn Evans in The Guardian (Exhibitionist: This week's art shows in pictures), 24 March: "In horror movies, flickering lights generally mean something supernatural. There's a similar fusion of language, electricity and yearning in Cerith Wyn Evans's art"

www.dlwp.com