"Cerith Wyn Evans is a philosopher-artist who mixes traditions, materials, and techniques into elegant works full of intellectual anxiety," writes New York art critic Jerry Saltz. The London-based artist staged his first Firework piece - text pieces crafted from fireworks hung upon wooden scaffolding - in the spring of 1996. To date he has realized six such performances and the resulting documentation. Three of these sculptures have been lit, while the unlit works have been exhibited in galleries and museums. Wyn Evans selects texts from literature, film history, and politics specific to the location in which they are placed. A large indoor piece shown, unignited, at the ARC, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, quoted Karl Marx: BETTER THAT THE WHOLE WORLD SHOULD BE DESTROYED AND PERISH THAN THAT A FREE MAN SHOULD REFRAIN FROM ONE ACT TO WHICH HIS NATURE MOVES HIM. For his miniMATRIX exhibition, BAM/PFA has commissioned Wyn Evans to create a new site-specific work for the garden terraces that will be illuminated at dusk on Sunday, February 9.
