Leonardo Drew: Ubiquity II, South London Gallery, 2025. Photo: Andy Stagg
This summer, American artist Leonardo Drew takes over the SLG’s main gallery with a new immersive sculptural installation.
Known for his explosive sculptural works, this is Leonardo Drew’s first solo exhibition in a London institution. He creates reflective abstract pieces that play on the tension between order and chaos. Transforming and eroding materials by hand in the studio, he explores the cyclical nature of life and decay.
Drew’s process is meditative and involves repetitive labour to create sculptures and large-scale installations. He says: “My work and my life are not separate. They are the same thing”. “I don’t work with found objects because there is already a history embedded in that material,” he explains. “For me, I need to go through the rigours of touching it, living it, ….become the weather.”
At the SLG, a new site-specific work will cover the walls and floor of the main gallery space. Fragments of wood are distressed, as though they have been through extreme weather events, natural disasters or, in Drew’s words, “acts of God”.
Drew refrains from attaching specific meaning to each work, preferring to title pieces numerically so the viewer can engage directly with the installation and discover a multitude of experiences within it.
Listen to our exhibition audio guide, with artist Leonardo Drew and an introduction from Margot Heller, Director of the SLG.
ABOUT LEONARDO DREW
Leonardo Drew’s works have been shown nationally and internationally, and are included in numerous public and private collections. Public institutions include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; and Tate, London, among others. Drew also collaborated with Merce Cunningham on the production of “Ground Level Overlay”. New York Times art critic Roberta Smith describes his large reliefs as “pocked, splintered, seemingly burned here, bristling there, unexpectedly delicate elsewhere. An endless catastrophe seen from above. The energies intimated in these works are beyond human control, bigger than all of us”. Drew currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and San Antonio, Texas.
ACCESS
- Please note that the ground of the gallery is uneven. The floor includes loose wood and debris, that can be walked over. We ask visitors to watch their step, and move mindfully through the space.
- Children must be escorted by an adult at all times. Babies and toddlers should be held or in prams.
- Seating and wheelchairs are available upon request. Please do not sit on the floor.
- Please do not touch the artwork.
- Handling materials are available – please ask a gallery assistant.
Generously supported by: Galerie Lelong & Co., Goodman Gallery and Henry Moore Foundation.
With additional support from: the Leonardo Drew Supporters’ Circle, Talley Dunn Gallery, Lubaina Himid, Latif & Company, and Anthony Meier Gallery.
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