Langlands & Bell: Degrees of Truth

The exhibition publication for Langlands & Bell: Degrees of Truth.

This full-colour book presents an array of work by Langlands & Bell, from Traces of Living, first made in 1986, to Grand Tour (2020), a major new work conceived for Soane’s iconic Library-Dining Room exploring the temporal and cultural relations emanating from the idea of the 18th-century Grand Tour. In a long-form interview, the artists shed light on their four-decade-long artistic collaboration, which seeks to locate evidence of the relationships between people, from the personal to the political, and to reveal the poetry and beauty in the world.

Presented at a moment when some cultural commentators argue that we have entered a 'post-truth' era, Langlands & Bell: Degrees of Truth reflects on architecture's capacities to bear witness to the technological, political, economic and cultural relationships that define contemporary society. This book accompanies the major exhibition at the Museum, and presents the breadth of the artists’ work, which ranges from film, video and digital media projects to sculpture, installation and full-scale architecture. From the found objects gathered in the early 1980s from the rubble and detritus of Whitechapel, to the slick hyper-determined buildings of the tech giants of Silicon Valley, both book and exhibition explore the disconnects that exist between ideas and narratives that buildings, objects and images are intended to convey and those they inadvertently reveal or which are acquired over time.

Author information

Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell are two artists who began working collaboratively in 1978 while studying art at Middlesex Polytechnic in London. They won a BAFTA Award and were shortlisted for the Turner Prize for The House of Osama bin Laden (2004).

Owen Hopkins is the curator of Langlands of Bell: Degrees of Truth, and was Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Education at Sir John Soane’s Museum until February 2020.

Book information

Hardcover 

96 pages

Cover 236 mm x 207 mm

Delivery

Shipping times: Due to the operational hours of the museum we ship orders from Tuesday to Fridays. Orders are sent out the next working day via UK First Class. Delivery to the rest of the world is Standard Shipping and will have different expected arrival dates.  

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding expected arrival dates.