© 2009 Luke Fowler, courtesy the Modern Institute, Glasgow

Luke Fowler, still from "The Way Out" (2003). DVD, 32 min.

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There’s no denying that filmmaker Luke Fowler is quickly becoming one of Scotland’s most celebrated young artists. His work is currently featured in New York’s "Younger Than Jesus" triennial at the New Museum; he won the inaugural Jarman Award for filmmakers last year; and the Serpentine Gallery is now presenting the artist’s first major survey in the UK. Fowler’s work muddies the documentary/fiction divide, and often presents fevered portraits of eccentric outsiders, such as David Bell, a psychiatric patient in R. D. Laing’s radical Kingsley Hall clinic, or Cornelius Cardew, the conductor of the Scratch Orchestra, an ensemble promoting the belief that music can be made by anyone, trained or not. Among the five film installations included in the exhibition is Composition for Flutter Screen (2008), which meditates on objects in transition, such as a glass of water as it shudders with fluctuations in surface tension. A collaboration with the Japanese sound artist Toshiya Tsunoda, the film will be projected on a swath of silk blown by fans, resulting in undulating wavelike motions that enhance the atmosphere of ephemerality.

serpentinegallery.org

"Luke Fowler" originally appeared in the May 2009 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' May 2009 Table of Contents.