Museum für Gegenwartskunst

The Museum für Gegenwartskunst presents the first Swiss exhibition surveying the work of the British artist Hilary Lloyd (b. 1964, lives in London). In 2001, the artist spent a year in Basel as a fellow of the Laurenz- Haus Foundation. The familiar city and its surroundings now also constitute a central aspect of the new video and slide works created specifically for this show. Lloyd's camera captures pictures of the modern city and its implicit potential as a site of voyeurism, fetishism, and sexual ambivalence. Her studies, some of which she pursues over extended periods of time, lead to the creation of haunting films showing people engaged in specific rituals of everyday life: workers, waiters, skaters, and clubbers become the subjects of her investigations. Architectural elements or flowers also attract Lloyd's eye and the lens of her camera and transforms them into images in their own right. Then there are abstract studies that recall liquid mercury, broken glass, or bright concentric circles. Her practice is not limited to the filmic image; the exhibition installation, with monitors and projectors elegantly and carefully arranged in the room, is an important aspect of Lloyd's work. The visitor is inevitably confronted not just with images but also with their manifestation.

In 2011, Hilary Lloyd was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize.