Sarah Morris: Who is Who

Sarah Morris: Who is Who presents new commissioned work by the American artist Sarah Morris, featuring her latest film ETC and site-specific wall painting Lippo [Paul Rudolph].

The exhibition title Who is Who nods to the philosopher Theodor Adorno’s Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (1951), a book which contemplates existence in a modern, industrial society. Throughout Morris’s work, she has considered the role of the artist in relation to power structures and economies. Using strategies of immersion in both her films and paintings, Morris places herself and the viewer in a chain of situations. Her graphic paintings and psycho-geographic films underscore complicity and cognitive dissonance in the modern age. 

Morris’s sixteenth film ETC continues her global exploration of the interconnection of place. Since Morris’s 1998 cinematic debut Midtown, a film shot in a single day in New York, the artist has often filmed cities at specific moments in time. The artist filmed Los Angeles (2004) during the Academy Awards, Rio (2012) during the Carnival, and Beijing (2008) during the Olympics; yet Morris refocuses on moments of the mundane and the apparatuses of production simultaneous to the spectacle.

In an era marked by rapid change, ETC reflects upon the use of commercial space, layering daily life with complex histories. ETC, with musical compositions by Liam Gillick, was shot in Hong Kong in the spring of 2023. The feature-length film visualizes the simultaneity of electronic and analogue life and alludes to Hong Kong’s role as a global centre of commerce.

The film’s title playfully recalls the Electronic Teller Card—an earlier version of today’s ATM card—and forms a shorthand for Morris’s modus operandi: The films according to her are “a reference system for every painting that I have ever made and will ever make.” The iconic graphic designer Henry Steiner designed “ETC” for HSBC in 1979 and the title credit of Morris’s new film in 2024.

Next to ETC is Lippo [Paul Rudolph] where Morris reimagines the legendary Lippo Centre, designed by the American architect Paul Rudolph. The high-rise architecture features multi-layered, glass-curtain walls which reflect each other and the surrounding city lights. The building, once titled the Bond Centre, was completed in 1988 and has witnessed various corporate collapses in ownership. Today, the Lippo Centre is home to international consulates, financial institutions, architectural firms as well as other entities. To Morris, “capital is always in flux, never a static form”, evidenced in Morris’s work and titling which constantly change form.

Alongside the exhibition, Sarah Morris and Scott King have created a billboard artwork TXJSQE for 55 Squared project in the courtyard of Tai Kwun, formerly the city’s police headquarters. The billboard presents a giant, black-and-white grid with capitalised letters: a ready-made wordsearch. At its centre, Morris’s own pet cat, KitKat, stares back at the viewer. The omnipotent cat, coupled with this “sea of letters”, does not offer any clear messages that commercial billboards are designed to carry. The double puzzle invites the viewer to hunt for meaning to complete the work similar to the open system that Morris presents in her films and paintings.

Morris’s latest film ETC is co-commissioned by M+ and Tai Kwun Contemporary. 

Curated by Tobias Berger.