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Tension Fine Art is honoured to present Gravity Is the Weakest Force in the Universe, a solo exhibition by Mark Wallinger. Through a diverse body of work, Wallinger explores fundamental forces, both physical and existential. His work reminds us that gravity is not just a physical force but a metaphor for unseen influences that shape human experience. From the shifting landscapes of Field Paintings and the mirrored self of Alter Ego to the eternal dance of opposites embodied in Castor and Pollux, the Gemini twins, the exhibition invites us to consider the forces that structure and shape our world.

1.

In the film ALTER EGO we see an endlessly revolving self portrait of the artist turning and mutating through two idealised symmetries: a true representation lost in its mirror-images. Alter ego literally means ‘second I’, or the ‘other self,’ while Arthur Rimbaud’s famous words ‘For I is an other,’ also emphasises the linguistic and philosophical conundrum of identity.

2.

Time, represented by an hourglass, is stilled by dint of its orientation on its side in MARGATE SANDS. Wallinger reflects on T.S. Eliot’s fragile mental state whilst convalescing in Margate and embarking on the Fire Sermon section of The Waste Land. 

On Margate Sands.

I can connect

Nothing with nothing.

Drawing from his own experiences with anxiety and depression, Wallinger describes panic attacks in The Russian Linesman ‘A panic attack is a meeting with the absolute. The here and now are catastrophically present, suffocating any attempts at reflection with existential dread.’

3.

Heartbroken, Pollux pleads with Zeus to grant Castor immortality, offering half of his own. Zeus agrees, transforming them into the constellation Gemini. To maintain the balance of the cosmos, they spend half the year on Olympus and half in the Underworld’s Elysium fields.

In his film, CASTOR AND POLLUX Wallinger draws parallels between mythology and modern space exploration. His film features the first-ever spacewalks, mirroring the twins’ eternal connection:

• Alexei Leonov (March 18, 1965): The first human to walk in space. His suit swelled in the vacuum, nearly trapping him outside. He had to release pressure manually to return. During the mission, he sketched an orbital sunrise—the first artwork created in space.
• Ed White (June 3, 1965): The first American spacewalker, emerging from Gemini IV. Overwhelmed, he delayed his return, saying, “I’m coming back in… and it’s the saddest moment of my life.”

Their mother crafts’ names—Voskhod II (meaning “sunrise” in Russian) and Gemini IV (named after the mythological twins)—reinforce their symbolic connection.

4 & 6.

With FIELD PAINTINGS, Wallinger continues his reappraisal of painting and the paradox of surface and depth that pervades the field of aesthetics. Using fine mesh layers stretched over a support, he creates tensions and distortions, to create dense and ungraspable moiré patterns, challenging traditional notions of ground and composition.

In physics, a field refers to a quantity assigned to every point in space, influencing everything within it. Michael Faraday coined the term in 1849, describing how invisible forces shape the world—just as Wallinger’s paintings explore hugely complex interactions between layers.

5.

Wallinger’s The World Turned Upside Down, a public sculpture unveiled in 2019 at the London School of Economics, reimagines a political globe flipped upside down. In the film GRAVITY IS THE WEAKEST FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE, he documents public reactions, but the footage itself is inverted, returning the world to its conventional orientation. In this antipodean shift people curious to find their place on the globe move effortlessly if strangely, secured by gravity. Compared to the other fundamental forces like electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force, gravity exerts the least amount of force even though it holds planets, stars, solar systems and even galaxies together. It’s astounding to think that when you lift a ball, your foot, or jump off the ground, you’re momentarily overcoming the gravitational pull of the entire earth. That there are other, more powerful forces in this world is suggested by the march in support of Palestine seen here.

About the artist

Mark Wallinger is one of the UK’s leading contemporary artists. Having previously been nominated for the Turner Prize in 1995, he won in 2007 for his installation ‘State Britain’. His work ‘Ecce Homo’ (1999–2000) was the first piece to occupy the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square. He represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2001. ‘Labyrinth’ (2013, 2023), a major and permanent commission for Art on the Underground, was created to celebrate 150 years of the London Underground. In 2018, the permanent work ‘Writ in Water’ was realised for the National Trust to celebrate Magna Carta at Runnymede, and ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ was unveiled in 2019 for the London School of Economics.

Tension does not accept unsolicited submissions or proposals

OPENING TIMES 

Friday - Saturday
11am - 5pm

or

by appointment