Year: 2006
Material/Technique: Neon lights, steel and glass
Dimensions: 30 x 300 x 300 cm
In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni is a text-based sculpture in which the titular Latin phrase is spelled out in white neon and presented in the form of a ring hung above head height from the gallery’s ceiling. One can read clockwise and counterclockwise in neon letters the poetic content of the Latin palindrome “In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni” (we ramble through the night and are consumed by fire).
The neon strips are mounted onto five curved, transparent glass panels and suspended from a large steel ring by ten wire cables. The metal ring is attached to either the ceiling or the walls using steel ropes and winches.
Evans has stated that he took the Latin phrase from the title of a 1978 film by the Marxist film-maker and writer Guy Debord. In the context of Debord’s anti-capitalist film, which appropriated fragments of advertisements to develop a critique of the mass media, the sentence conveys a highly pessimistic view of the modern world. Wyn Evans’s use of neon could be seen to connect his sculpture with a similar political context, since the material is commonly used for commercial signage.
Artist
Cerith Wyn Evans (Llanelli 1958-) is a Welsh conceptual artist, known for both his experimental films and complex sculptural installations that incorporate chandeliers and neon lights. He studied at the Saint Martin’s School of Art and later at the Royal College of Art in London. Mostly working in film during the 1980s, Evans began producing sculpture and installation during the early 1990s. Since then, he has gone on to be the subject of exhibitions at White Cube gallery in London, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Tate Gallery in London. The artist currently lives and works in London, United Kingdom. Today, Evans’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, and the Center for Contemporary Art in Kitakyushu, Japan, among others.
His artistic practice focuses on how ideas can be communicated through form. His conceptual work incorporates a diverse range of media including including film, photography, sculpture, and installation. Evans has used unusual and eccentric materials, such as fireworks, light fixtures, neon lights, lanterns, Morse code, plants, mirror balls, and even urine, to express and explore his ideas on language and perception.