Tannhäuser Gate by Paul Benny

Private View: 9th October, 6.30 PM – 8.00 PM

6:30 PM – Doors open

7:00 PM – World premiere performance of a work by Nitin Sawhney, CBE, for choir and orchestra (approx. 6 minutes)

All welcome!

The name “Tannhäuser Gate” in Paul Benney’s triptych directly evokes the famous “Tears in Rain” monologue delivered by Rutger Hauer’s character, Roy Batty, in Blade Runner (1982). In that scene, Batty—a dying replicant—speaks hauntingly about memories and moments he has witnessed that will vanish forever, including:

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate… All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

This reference layers the painting with several implications:

1. A Futuristic Lamentation

Just as Batty’s speech is a moment of profound existential grief—delivered by an artificial being who has developed deep human feeling—Benney’s work juxtaposes sacred imagery (the descent from the cross, the entombment of Christ, mourning figures) with symbols of modern life (like neon exit signs and restroom icons). The title “Tannhäuser Gate” thus casts the triptych as a vision of humanity’s spiritual trauma in an age of technological alienation—a place where divinity and mass-produced signage cohabit uneasily.

2. Religious and Sci-Fi Fusion

Benney’s central Christ figure wrapped in a “polymer shroud” beneath a “glowing neon-green sign” resembles a “Bladerunner Christ”, blending the Pietà tradition with dystopian futurism. The “Tannhäuser Gate” is not just a location; it’s a threshold between sacred and secular, flesh and machine, grief and indifference—a gateway where archetypal human experience meets modern abstraction.

3. Mythic Resonance

The word “Tannhäuser” also recalls the medieval German legend of the knight and poet who enters the Venusberg, a mountain of sin and sensuality, and then seeks redemption. This myth, famously used by Wagner, thematically connects to Christ’s passion, death, and entombment. Benney’s painting, then, layers:

• Wagnerian myth (moral struggle and redemption),
• Biblical narrative (descent and lamentation),
• Blade Runner’s existential sci-fi (memory, loss, synthetic humanity).

So while the image looks like a religious triptych, the title anchors it in Blade Runner’s dystopian mythology, transforming a traditional form into a meditation on modern suffering, symbolic collapse, and the persistence of archetypal grief in a dehumanised world.

Also showing will be Reliquaries.

The Reliquary series focuses on the visual language and spiritual significance of fire. Combining animation with painting, physical and digital methods, to communicate the ephemerality of flames and fire.

It emphasises the metaphor of the flame as animation and a representation of the human spirit. The series of progressively spent candles represent the different stages of life and reflect life’s transitory, fleeting and mysterious qualities.

An added paradox comes from the impossibility of a flame staying alight in an airless bell jar; these animated digital/painted hybrids only deepen the mystery of what we mean by the concept of a meditation on the corporeal dialogue between body and soul.

Exhibition will run until Friday 21st November

Monday – Friday: 9am – 5pm
Saturday: 9am – 5pm
Sunday: 8am – 4pm