Arms!

Location

Country: France
City: Paris
Place: British Embassy

Silhouettes of arms in various colours, each making a different gesture are layered on top of one another, making them difficult to identify singularly. The work was made by Corin Sworn as a response to British sociologist Carol Steedman’s 1986 publication, Landscape for a Good Woman, and commissioned by Glasgow Women’s Library. In 2012, the Library commissioned 21 women artists to each create new prints inspired by items and artefacts in its collections. 

Sworn says: 

A friend suggested that I read ‘Landscape For a Good Woman’ by the sociologist Carol Steedman. The Glasgow Women’s Library was the only public library with it in their holdings – so off I went to borrow that copy.

Steedman examines her own upbringing in working class London in order to point out the inadequacies of various theoretical lenses used to study marginal figures. In reflection of her work, ‘Arms!’ plays with layering to suggest the loss of the specific in amassing the multiple.

Born in London, Corin Sworn studied Psychology and Art History at the University of British Columbia; and Integrated Media at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver. She completed her MFA at the Glasgow School of Art in 2009. She has held residencies at the Bauhaus in Dessau; and at the LUX in London. Solo exhibitions of Sworn's work include shows at the Tramway, Glasgow (2010); Tate Britain (2011); and the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2011). In 2013, her commissioned work 'The Rag Papers' was shown at Chisenhale Gallery; and that year she co-represented Scotland at the Venice Biennial along with Hayley Tompkins and Duncan Campbell as part of Scotland + Venice 2013.

Places

Subjects

arm, hand

Materials & Techniques

watercolour (as artists materials), gouache (as artists material), print (as object name), newspaper cutting, digital print, giclée

Artist

Corin Sworn (1976 - )

Title

Arms!

Edition

Number 20 in an edition of 20

Date

2012

Medium

giclee print, newspaper, water colour and gouache on paper

Dimensions

height: 56 cm; width: 40.7 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Glasgow Women's Library, with funds raised from print sales from the Robson Orr TenTen Award, a GAC/Outset Annual Commission, March 2020

Inscription

verso: signed by the artist ' 20/20 2012', bottom right

Provenance

Glasgow Women's Library, Glasgow, UK; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection

GAC number

18884