Pavilion

Catherine Yass (1963 - )

Colour transparency and light-box

2000

Share this:

© Catherine Yass

License this image

Image of Pavilion
  • About the work
    Location
    Country: Germany
    City: Berlin
    Place: British Embassy
    Pavilion presents a colourful semi-abstract view of the striking internal circular staircase in the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea. This art gallery on the English south coast was designed by German-born architect Eric Mendelsohn in 1935. Its distinctive architectural style earned the De La Warr’s reputation as the first truly Modernist building in Britain, and it reflected the international influence of the Bauhaus. Mendelsohn settled in England in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution in 1919–1920 and 1935 respectively.
     
    Pavillion is one of two photographic light-boxes by Catherine Yass commissioned in 2000 by the Collection on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, for the British Embassy in Berlin. The commission coincided with the construction of a new British Embassy following the reunification of Germany in 1990, to replace the historical site that had been destroyed during the Second World War. The submission to the architectural competition won by Michael Wilford and Partners proposed ‘to symbolise not only cooperation between Germany and the United Kingdom, but also ‘openness’, with a striking and innovative façade made of the same local Berlin sandstone with which the Brandenburg Gate was constructed’.

  • About the artist
    Catherine Yass was born in London and studied at the Slade School of Art (1982–1986) and at Goldsmiths’ College (1989–1990). Yass is an artist who uses film and photography to document time and space, using her work to explore the psychological and formal properties of architecture and built environments. In 2002 she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and she has participated in the judging panels for both The Jerwood Photography Prize and The Citibank Photography Prize. Her work, which has been widely exhibited internationally, is represented in public museum collections including the Tate, London; the Biblioteca Albertina, Leipzig; and The Jewish Museum, New York. Yass lives and works in London.
  • Explore
    Places
    England, Sussex
    Subjects
    topography, pavilion
    Materials & Techniques
    light-box, photograph (as object name), transparency, colour transparency
  • Details
    Artist
    Catherine Yass (1963 - )
    Title
    Pavilion
    Date
    2000
    Medium
    Colour transparency and light-box
    Dimensions
    height: 97.40 cm, width: 123.20 cm, depth: 12.80 cm
    Acquisition
    Commissioned from the artist, July 2000
    Provenance
    the artist
    GAC number
    17514