The Art Newspaper

Artangel’s Crystal Palace to re-open

Seizure by Roger Hiorns - a major sculptural project installed in an abandoned South London flat – welcomes visitors from next week

By Gareth Harris. Web only
Published online: 16 July 2009

London. One of the most high-profile installations to be launched in the UK last year is set to re-open on 23 July. Roger Hiorns’s major sculptural project “Seizure” - a derelict South London flat transformed by the UK artist into a cavern coated in copper sulphate crystals – first opened late last year. The work led to Hiorns being nominated for this year’s Turner Prize.

“After the project opened, 157 Harper Road became a site of pilgrimage. Every day hundreds of people would make their way across the capital to go inside this anonymous flat near the Elephant & Castle,” said a spokeswoman for Artangel, the non-profit public art facilitator who commissioned the piece.

Hiorns pumped over 75,000 litres of copper sulphate solution into the abandoned housing complex to create a thick, shiny, jagged crystalline growth (visitors are required to wear Wellingtons) on the surfaces of the building.

The council is set to pull down the housing complex which means that Seizure will also be demolished.

Artangel’s other current London project, Mens Suits by Charles LeDray (until 20 September), takes place at the Fire Station in Chiltern Street, W1. For further information: www.artangel.org.uk

Seizure re-opens on 23 July, free admission, opening Thursday- Saturday 11am - 7pm, Sundays 11am - 5pm and closed Monday-Wednesday