BEXHILL ON SEA.- The De La Warr Pavilion announced its show, Safari: an exhibition as expedition, an anthology of works by British artist Simon Patterson.

Spanning twenty-five years of work, and including a site-specific commission and an outside intervention, this exhibition takes the visitor on a mini safari through the De La Warr Pavilion. This trek encompasses wall drawings, sculpture, prints, photographs, video and installation.

Sited throughout the gallery, and interspersed between earlier works and personal objects, is the commission Patterson has created for the De La Warr Pavilion. Entitled Safari, this new work comprises objects drawn from Bexhill and Hastings Museums, including artefacts collected by Annie Brassey (1839-87), the English writer and traveller who lived near Hastings, Bexhill-on-Sea’s neighbouring town. Brassey amassed an extensive collection of ethnographic objects during her voyages around the world on her steam yacht, Sunbeam, a vessel that doubled as a museum. Patterson’s selection includes spears, oars and other similarly shaped items.

Safari features several more contentious objects originating from local fraudsters, charlatans and fantasists. These include items relating to the notorious Piltdown Man, a paleoanthropological hoax perpetrated by Hastings-based Charles Dawson in 1912, in which miscellaneous bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human; and Grey Owl, the adopted name of Hastings-born Archibald Belaney (1888-1938), who passed himself off as Native American.

Escape Routine, 2002, is the first work visitors encounter on entering the gallery. In this video, flight attendants alternately demonstrate in-flight safety procedures and feats of escapology, while voiceovers in English and Japanese read extracts from Harry Houdini’s writings on magic and stagecraft. By combining these unlikely acts, the artist opens up a range of alternative meanings.

Meanwhile, Manned Flight 1999, a man-lifting kite inscribed with the name of the first person in space, Yuri Gagarin, has been positioned in the De La Warr Pavilion’s iconic North Staircase, visible from outside. An itinerant work, Manned Flight 1999 has been displayed around the world, with the aim that it will ultimately reach the site outside Moscow where Gagarin was killed on a routine training flight.

Says Rosie Cooper, Head of Exhibitions, De La Warr Pavilion: ‘We are very excited to be working with Simon on his first solo show in the UK for almost a decade. The exhibition unfolds across the entire building and out to the sea, with the help of our neighbours the Bexhill Sailing Club. The partnership with Bexhill and Hastings Museums continues our relationships with these significant local institutions, who continue to provide us with an important way to understand where and who we are in the world.’

Simon Patterson, b. 1967, is a graduate of Goldsmiths’ College, London. He first came to public attention in 1988 when his work appeared as part of the influential Freeze exhibition. In 1996, he was shortlisted for the Turner Prize. Patterson's paintings, sculptures and films frequently co-opt and subvert traditional sources of information. He lives in London.

Patterson’s work features in many public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Tate Collection; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Kunsthaus, Zurich. Solo shows include: The Grey Art Gallery, New York (1993); Lisson Gallery, London (1996); Kunsthaus, Zurich (1997); Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2005); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2005); Haunch of Venison, London (2007 and 2012); The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (2008); Galeria Nieves Fernandez, Madrid (2013); Serlachius Museum, Mantta, Finland (2014). Group exhibitions include Freeze, London (1988); Doubletake, Hayward Gallery, London (1992) and Vienna Kunsthalle (1993); Aperto, Venice Biennale (1993); Mapping, Museum of Modern Art, New York (1994); The Sense of Order, Museum of Modern Art, Lujbljana (1996); Sensation, Royal Academy, London (1997) and The Brooklyn Museum, New York (1998); Sydney Biennale (2002); 100 Artists See God, ICI, Jewish Museum San Francisco (touring show) (2004); Eye on Europe, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006); Print the Legend: The Myth of the West, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2008).