Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press
'The relationship between spoken language, written language, and sculptural form relies on an acknowledgement that words are extensions of our physical selves, so I started to explore the physicality of words.'
Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press (b. 1966, Merseyside) explores gender, language, interpretation and publishing through a range of mediums, including drawing, sculpture, performance and the moving image. The struggle between language and its limitations is central to Banner’s conceptual approach. With an interest in how conflict is mythologised through popular culture, her early work took the form of ‘wordscapes’ or ‘still films’, blow-by-blow accounts in her own words of feature films, from war movies to pornos, from intimate scenes to historical events. These works evolved into solid single blocks of text, often the same shape and size as a cinema screen. Banner later turned her attention to the idea of the art-historical nude, observing a life model and transcribing, in words, the pose and form. Her repurposing of military aircraft is another key element in her work. She often transforms these imposing machines to brutal, sensual and comedic ends, using parts of military aircraft in her installations, or granting them a kind of living presence. In her film Pranayama Organ (2021) two decoy military aircraft slowly inflate on a desolate beach. The film then transitions into a ritualistic performance acted out by two people dressed as fighter planes, one of which is the artist, as human and automaton perform a darkly comical ritual of courtship and combat.
In 1997 Banner started her own publishing imprint The Vanity Press, with her monumental The Nam. She has since published many works, as books, sculptural objects or performances. In 2009 she issued herself an ISBN number and registered herself as a publication under her own name.
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Drawings
5 Apr - 17 May 2001 Soho SquareWall-, floor-, light-based and free-hanging, the drawings in this show defy the status of the drawing as solely a preliminary study and revel in the use of colour – with...Read more -
Fiona Banner
Stop 18 Nov 1999 - 14 Jan 2000 Soho SquareBest known for her ‘Wordscapes’ or ‘Still Films’ which are densely verbal descriptions of entire films, Banner’s recent drawings deal in words without saying anything. She has described them as...Read more -
0 To 60 In 10 Years
A Decade in Soho - Part II 8 Jul - 13 Aug 1999 Soho SquareJane Hamlyn opened the gallery in 1989 and over the last 10 years, Frith Street Gallery has developed an international programme of painting, photography, sculpture, film and video, doubled its...Read more -
Fiona Banner, Bridget Smith
Only The Lonely 1 May - 20 Jun 1997 Soho SquareBridget Smith’s large colour photographs are infused with an illusive sense of fantasy and escapism. In 1995 she made some of her first photographs – a series of cinema interiors...Read more -
4 Projects
27 Jan - 11 Mar 1995 Soho SquareThis show of four young artists from Britain and Ireland makes use of the separate spaces at Frith Street Gallery inviting each artist to make an environment in one room....Read more