Drunk

For this trilogy, Wearing asked several London drunkards to come to her studio, where they could do their thing in front of the camera. Wearing was not preoccupied with moralising but more with their physical and emotional lack of inhibition. Gillian Wearing (1963) trained as an artist. She won the UK’s prestigious Turner Prize in 1997 and has become one of the most acclaimed and discussed young British artists working largely with the moving image. Her extensive video work is known for emotional rawness and a direct approach to often traumatic situations and experience. Sometimes using actors as in Sacha and Mum (1996), her pieces are never unthinkingly ‘documentary’ or voyeuristic, but always show the elements of manipulation and the involvement of the video-maker (as in Dancing in Peckham, 1994). Her major piece Drunk (1997-99), walks an almost intolerable line between authenticity, performance and self-exposure.