Young British Artists (YBA)

Frozen Sky 1999 A screen print on Somerset Satin 410 gsm paper Paper image size: 70.0 x 66.0 cm Edition 45 with 11 artist’s proofs Proofed editioned at Advanced Graphics, London Published by Alan Cristea Gallery Langlands & Bell are two artists who work collaboratively. Ben Langlands (born London 1955) and Nikki Bell (born London 1959), began collaborating in 1978, while studying Fine Art at Middlesex Polytechnic in North London, from 1977 to 1980. Their artistic practice ranges from sculpture, film and video, to innovative digital media projects, and full-scale architecture. Their work focuses on the complex web of relationships linking people with architecture and the built environment, and on a wider global level, the coded systems of mass-communications and exchange we use to negotiate an increasingly fast-changing technological world. In the mid-1980s, they became known for making monochromatic sculptures and reliefs, often in the form of furniture or architectural models, which employed an analytical and almost archeological approach to architecture and design typologies to explore human social interaction in terms ranging from the personal, to the socio-aesthetic, and socio-political. Langlands & Bell have exhibited internationally throughout their career including in exhibitions at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, the Imperial War Museum, the Serpentine Gallery, and the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, at IMMA, Dublin, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany, MoMA, New York, the Central House of the Artist, Moscow, Venice Biennale, Seoul Biennale, and CCA Kitakyushu and TN Probe, Tokyo in Japan. Their work was first purchased by Charles Saatchi in 1990 and 1991 from exhibitions at Maureen Paley Interim Art, London. It was subsequently exhibited in the first of the Young British Artists exhibitions at the Saatchi Collection, Boundary Road in 1992, and again in the 1997 Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. Sensation toured to the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin and the Brooklyn Museum, New York in 1998/99. In 1996-1997, a major survey exhibition Langlands & Bell Works 1986–1996 co-curated by the Serpentine Gallery, London, and Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany also toured to Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, Palermo, Italy, and Koldo Mitxelena, San Sebastián, Spain. In 2002, Langlands & Bell were commissioned by the Art Commissions Committee of the Department of Art at the Imperial War Museum, London, to travel to Afghanistan to research "The Aftermath of September 11 and the War in Afghanistan". In 2004, they won the BAFTA Award (British Academy of Film & Television Arts) for Interactive Arts Installation for The House of Osama bin Laden, the trilogy of art works resulting from their visit. In 2004 Langlands & Bell were also short-listed for the Turner Prize for the same work. Artworks by Langlands & Bell are in the permanent collections of many prominent international art museums including the British Museum, Imperial War Museum, (Focusing on contemporary images of conflict, violence, war and peace, ‘Caught in the Crossfire’ drew from the permanent collection of the Herbert Art Gallery, including works by Banksy, Graham Sutherland, Langlands & Bell, Ori Gersht and Terry Atkinson...