SIMON HITCHENS AT FRIEZE SCULPTURE
British artist Simon Hitchens will participate in this year’s of edition of Frieze Sculpture, the celebrated public art exhibition in London’s Regent’s Park, curated by Fatoş Üstek under the theme “In the Shadows.” Running from September 17 to November 2, 2025, the exhibition brings together works that engage with darkness in its many forms, from inner landscapes and cultural symbolism to the unseen and the ambiguous.
Hitchens will present Bearing Witness To Things Unseen, a new iteration of a 2022 work from his acclaimed Shadow series. Installed in the historic English Gardens, the monumental sculpture, created especially for Frieze Sculpture, stands like an irregular, polished black portal, a void carved from space and matter itself. Upright and human in scale, it possesses a strong anthropomorphic presence. As viewers approach, its western face reveals a deep, mirror-like polish that reflects their image within the silhouette of an absent rock’s shadow.
Circling the form, the viewer encounters its dense black surface, scored with finely incised parallel ridges that run its length, as if the material has been extruded through time. At the eastern end, the work opens into a rugged, cave-like void: the negative cast of a long-absent boulder, rendered with geological precision. This is the rock’s shadow, captured at the moment it was cast by the rising sun on the spring equinox, one of only two days each year when day and night are perfectly balanced.
The sculpture embodies a convergence of temporal scales, the deep time of geological formation, the celestial rhythm of equinoxes and the immediacy of human perception. It offers a meditation on presence and absence, transience and continuity, a reflection on the brief span of human life held against the enduring structures of the natural world.
London Sculpture Week: Public Programming
In a durational and performative extension of the work, Hitchens will stage a live drawing performance from dawn until dusk on 21 September, 2025 in the Park’s English Gardens. Over the course of the day, Hitchens will trace the shadow of a locally sourced geological object, marking the autumn equinox. This live drawing will capture the passage of time and shifting light, eventually forming part of a new limited-edition work. Visitors will be able to view the drawing in progress and observe the artist’s process throughout the day, punctuated by the public curator tour at 12pm, led by Fatoş Üstek. On the evening of the same day, Hitchens will also participate in “night walks,” which are curator tours led by Üstek, at 8pm and 8:45pm.
In addition, on 28 September, Hitchens will undertake another durational drawing performance. On this occasion, however, visitors will be invited to take part and contribute to a collaborative artwork. Using Simon Hitchens’ pen, participants of all ages will be encouraged to add to a collective drawing inspired by his sculpture and the themes of light, time and shadow.
Both events are part of London Sculpture Week, a citywide celebration of art in the outdoors with tours, workshops and performances across London. Free and open to all, running from September 20 to 28, 2025.
