The Serpentine Galleries will present the first-ever U.K. solo exhibition of Lauren Halsey this fall. Titled “emajendat,” the show opens on October 4, 2024 at Serpentine South and runs until March 2, 2025. Halsey plans to transform the gallery into an immersive “funk garden,” integrating site-specific installations that respond to Kensington Gardners.
The “funk garden” concept refers to a multisensory environment that the artist will create in the gallery space. The exhibition space is transformed by walls and floors lined with the shiny, reflective sides of discarded CDs, casting prism-like light effects throughout. Enlarged recreations of figurines, originally sourced from local swap meets and community donations in South Central Los Angeles, are strategically placed. These will be accompanied by a variety of sculptures and plants that reference her home and community.
“Incorporating sand, plants, light, and sound, this commission is one of the artist’s most ambitious installations to date,” said Bettina Korek, CEO of Serpentine Galleries, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the gallery, in a joint statement. “By archiving and remixing the changing signs and symbols of her community, Halsey offers a celebratory and creative form of resistance to its growing gentrification. Sharing this work with new audiences in London is a perfect example of Serpentine’s mission to platform voices that deserve full attention today.”
Halsey’s practice draws extensively from the cultural and community symbols of South Central Los Angeles, where her family has lived for generations. By incorporating everyday objects and artifacts from her community, the installations in “emajendat” will reflect a celebratory and critical engagement with themes of cultural identity, community activism, and urban development, similar to much of her sculptural work in recent years.
This exhibition builds off of Halsey’s recent major projects. In 2023, the artist was selected for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Roof Garden Commission in New York, where she presented the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (2022). And at this year’s Venice Biennale, her work keepers of the krown (2024) features in the main show “Foreigners Everywhere,” on view until November 24th . There, she reconfigured the form of the Hathoric column to directly involve members of her community.
Halsey’s solo show at Serpentine will also act as a precedence for Halsey’s most ambitious project to date: a sculpture park in the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles. The park, currently titled “sister dreamer, lauren halsey’s architectural ode to tha surge n splurge of south central los angeles,” will be completed by spring 2025 and will stay open through the end of 2026. The installation will feature eight sphinxes and eight columns, all intricately carved to resemble personal heroes, family members, and other community activists important to Halsey.
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