Not currently on display at the V&A

Bed #10

Print
2008 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Derek Besant (b.1950, Canada) made this print (and Bed #9, E.590-2009) for the portfolio, Fifteen Restless Nights. This was made as the result of a road trip Besant made across Canada in 2005; staying at low-priced road-side hotels along the way; each morning he would take the opportunity to photograph any vacated rooms before the maids arrived to clean them. There is a voyeuristic quality to these stolen images of intimate spaces. The impact is heightened by the life-size scale of the works. They are photo-based images printed onto crumpled nylon scrim using thermal inks. The artist manipulated some aspects of each image, with white contour drawing, and the accentuation of certain features - a lamp, a headboard, a patterned bedspread.

The prints are designed to be displayed unframed, supported only by pins at the top edge, so that they float free, and the lighting produces shadows of the imagery on the wall behind, enhancing their ethereal film noir quality, and the sense of a fleeting moment remembered as if in a dream. The prints were part of a larger installation which included sound and text, which offered various narratives, but the images invite the viewer to imagine their own.


Object details

Category
Object type
TitleBed #10 (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Thermal uv vinyl ink transfer on Japanese Shibouri (crumpled) veil scrim
Brief description
Derek Besant: Bed #10, 2008. Thermal uv vinyl ink transfer on Japanese Shibouri (crumpled) veil scrim
Physical description
Piece of crumpled loose-weave fabric printed in black on white with image of empty disarranged bed
Dimensions
  • Height: 75cm
  • Width: 100cm
Credit line
Given by the artist
Subjects depicted
Summary
Derek Besant (b.1950, Canada) made this print (and Bed #9, E.590-2009) for the portfolio, Fifteen Restless Nights. This was made as the result of a road trip Besant made across Canada in 2005; staying at low-priced road-side hotels along the way; each morning he would take the opportunity to photograph any vacated rooms before the maids arrived to clean them. There is a voyeuristic quality to these stolen images of intimate spaces. The impact is heightened by the life-size scale of the works. They are photo-based images printed onto crumpled nylon scrim using thermal inks. The artist manipulated some aspects of each image, with white contour drawing, and the accentuation of certain features - a lamp, a headboard, a patterned bedspread.

The prints are designed to be displayed unframed, supported only by pins at the top edge, so that they float free, and the lighting produces shadows of the imagery on the wall behind, enhancing their ethereal film noir quality, and the sense of a fleeting moment remembered as if in a dream. The prints were part of a larger installation which included sound and text, which offered various narratives, but the images invite the viewer to imagine their own.
Collection
Accession number
E.591-2009

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Record createdNovember 25, 2009
Record URL
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