PRESENTATION: Jane and Louise Wilson-Countermeasures
Jane and Louise Wilson have been working as an artist duo in collaboration since 1989 and are based in London. Louise Wilson completed her BA at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, while Jane Wilson studied at Newcastle Polytechnic; in 1989, they presented identical works for their respective degree shows, marking the beginning of their collaborative practice. Their early works examine abandoned buildings as forms of psychic architecture, shaped by the presence and ideology of their former occupants.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Skulpturenhalle I Thomas Schütte Foundation,
“Countermeasures”, Jane and Louise Wilson first exhibition in Germany in twenty years takes the Skulpturenhalle – situated on a former NATO and U.S. missile base, now surrounded by fields – as its point of departure. The Wilson twins new project is based on their experiences in Greenham‹ Common, an American military base in England, which housed cruise missiles during the Cold War. The site became an important and generally well known point of focus for the peace movement as well as the C.N.D protest. Greenham Common was abandoned after the end of the Cold War, however it remains part of an INF treaty until 2001 which allows for Russian military inspection at any time.
The exhibition consists of a four screen video projection, photographs taken during the filming and three dimensional sculptures. The four way projections and life size models of objects and surroundings from the Greenham Common buildings enable the viewer to be confronted with a space which is uncannily close to the original. The film captures the controversial history of the now deserted site. The bland look of the office style architecture and furniture contradicts the actual function and significance of the place creating a sense of confusion and denial. Abandoned rooms, dramatised through titles revealing their former functions as decontamination chambers, command centres and form a silent narrative emptied of human content. The empty rooms become loaded with the memories of those who once inhabited them, as well as the top security system by which they were surrounded.. Intimidating security measures such as the classic ‘No Alone Zone’ have now disappeared, but a threatening atmosphere of suspense remains, captured by the artists in their disturbing images.
Jane and Louise Wilson have pioneered video art as spatial installation since the 1990s. They explore and transform the macro- and microstructures of contemporary life – from architecture to cellular tissue – to offer novel spatial experiences. With the exhibition at the Skulpturenhalle, the moving image takes centre stage for the first time as a sculptural medium.
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) in 1967, the sisters combine video, photography, and sound in conceptual investigations of visibility and invisibility in relation to power structures. Their work came to international prominence through projects for which they accessed restricted, politically charged sites such as military facilities, government buildings, and border zones. Among the locations they filmed and photographed are a former Stasi prison, “Star City,” the training complex of the Russian space programme, and Chernobyl. From the material gathered, they develop video installations that offer new, often unsettling experiences of space. Fragmented architectures and bodies condense, architecture emerges as a repository of memory and shifting value systems.
As identical twins, Jane and Louise Wilson share a distinctive sensitivity to the relationships between perception, matter, image, and identity – especially their fractures. Architectural, medial, and psychological layers intersect in their work; equally central are the suggestive powers of cinema, visual language and hypnosis, as well as camouflage and facial recognition as phenomena of control. Mirrorings, duplications and visual shifts permeate their practice, highlighting the surreal and irrational dimensions of the modern structures surrounding us.
Photo: Jane and Louise Wilson, False Postive False Negative 7 (left) & False Postive False Negative 8 (right), Video still, © Jane and Louise Wilson, Courtesy the artists and Skulpturenhalle I Thomas Schütte Foundation
Info: Curator: Juliane Duft, Skulpturenhalle I Thomas Schütte Foundation, Lindenweg, Junction Berger Weg, Near Raketenstation, Neuss/Holzheim, Germany, Duration: 6/2-16/8/2026, Days & Hours: Fri-Sin 10:00-18:00, https://thomas-schuette-stiftung.de/
