YOU DIG THE TUNNEL, I’LL HIDE THE SOIL

Harland Miller

Published by Jay Jopling/White Cube Gallery (2008)

Designed by Jonathan Barnbrook

Paperback, 80 pages

21 x 14.8 cm (h x w)

ISBN 978-1-906072-15-5

White Cube Hoxton Square presented ‘You Dig the Tunnel, I’ll Hide the Soil’, curated by the artist and writer Harland Miller in collaboration with Irene Bradbury. In anticipation of the bicentenary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth (1809), the exhibition explored the enduring legacy and cult status of the American writer.

 

Poe is now recognised as an artist far ahead of his time, particularly for the charged psychological facets of his work, which seemed to foretell psychoanalysis, pre-dating Freud by more than half a century. His famous detective, Dupin, became the blueprint for many future detectives, including Sherlock Holmes, Poirot and Miss Marple, and he is also a pioneer of what we now know as science fiction, influencing such writers as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

 

‘You Dig the Tunnel, I’ll Hide the Soil’ featured the work of Fergus Bremner, Jake & Dinos Chapman, John Cooper Clarke, Liz Craft, Tracey Emin, Angus Fairhurst, Katharina Fritsch, Paul Fryer, Barnaby Furnas, Douglas Gordon, Rodney Graham, Marcus Harvey, Anton Henning, Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, Abigail Lane, Christian Marclay, Kris Martin, Harland Miller, Polly Morgan, Mike Nelson, Magnus Plessen, Michele Howarth Rashman, Julian Schnabel, Gregor Schneider, Norbert Schoerner, George Shaw, Cindy Sherman, Jason Shulman, Dirk Skreber, Paul Steinitz, Fred Tomaselli, Jane & Louise Wilson, and Cerith Wyn Evans.