The first site-specific installation at Victoria Miro Venice, Closer Than Before features a dynamic architectural intervention that transforms part of the gallery, providing context for new wall-mounted works that continue the artist’s interest in layering, materiality, illusion and how art questions our relationship to time.

Alex Hartley’s work often possesses the quality of a time machine that frees the mind to wander. In his work it is as if we are teleported into the future in order to look back at the present or very recent past. In Closer Than Before this layering of time extends from the works on view to the peeling away of the fabric of the gallery, lent an ecological imperative by an unseen event that asks us to consider what might have occurred and what might be to come.

The exhibition takes place during the Biennale Architettura 2023 and was conceived during Hartley’s recent residency with the gallery in Venice.