The grand Georgian building at 50 St. James’s stands in the centre of London and at the heart of the British establishment. For almost 150 years, it was the home of The Devonshire Club, a domain for English gentlemen. Refurbished for a new life as a corporate HQ, 50 St James’s lay vacant through the summer of 1996, suspended between an empty past and an unknown future.
Gabriel Orozco animated this sleeping building with a sequence of sculptural transformations. In the grand banqueting room an exquisite oval billiard table was installed, a red ball hovering above the green baize like a perpetuum mobile. Elsewhere the visitor to Empty Club encountered The Atomists, and extended series of sporting prints, a ‘dream-scape’ model of Lord’s Cricket ground and an avenue of moon trees.
Guy Brett, Jean Fisher, Mark Haworth-Booth and James Lingwood discuss Orozco’s subtle meditation on movement and stability, centre and periphery, rules and etiquette within an imposing British context.