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b. 1967, Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Twins Jane and Louise Wilson were born in 1967 in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. From 1986 to 1989, Jane studied art at Newcastle Polytechnic and Louise studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee. For their concurrent B.A. degree shows, they showed identical bodies of work, and from that point on they have continued to collaborate on photographs and videos. They both attended Goldsmiths College in London, receiving M.A. degrees in 1992.
The twins' early work comprises photographs and films of performances. Garage (1989–93) is a large black-and-white photograph of Jane, noose around her neck, pouring water into an aquarium and over Louise's head. Hypnotic Suggestion (1993) features video footage of the twins under hypnosis. The Wilsons' work took a more political turn with Stasi City (1997), a four-screen video projection filmed at the former Stasi police headquarters in East Berlin. Since this project, the Wilsons' work has explored Modernism and its ambitions through specific historical sites. They filmed at the American military base in Greenham Common, England, for Gamma (1999). Dreamtime (2001) was filmed during a Russian rocket launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the world's largest space-launch center. A Free and Anonymous Monument (2003) uses four video screens to address the history of Victor Pasmore's Apollo Pavilion, an architectonic sculpture built at the center of the town of Gateshead, England, and now covered with grafitti and regarded as a symbol of the failure of Modernist urban planning. This abstract structure is juxtaposed in the film with an oil rig whose function conversely dictates its form.
The Wilson sisters have had exhibitions at the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Geneva (1997), Kunsthalle Hamburg (1999), the Tate in London (2000), Kunst-Werke Berlin (2002), and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England (2003), among other venues. They have also exhibited widely in international group shows, including the Carnegie International (1999), Korean Biennial (2000), Istanbul Biennial (2001), Moving Pictures at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2003), and Remind at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Bregenz, Austria (2003). In 1999, they were shortlisted for the Turner Prize. They live and work in London.
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