This exhibition is meant to explore the causes of the destruction of man through the perspective of a post-apocalypse realm. The beginning of the exhibition is meant to represent the hours following the apocalypse, the birth of a world without humans and then you see the landscape. Familiar locations from present day that have been returned to the wild, entropy of nature prevailing as human exposure is completely removed. From there you explore possibly destructive characteristics of the post-modern world including Commercialism, Global Powers, Artificial Intelligence, International Arms Races, and Biological Technology. Once exposed to the horrifying trends of our present situation, the viewer is taken to a room where they are presented with a view of a micro-population of human beings. Reflective and suggestive, Global Uncertainties is meant to leave you with an insight on how certain negative human impacts have jaded the world, but has also caused their entire existence to be shattered as a result.
Dawn of a New Earth:
Lafur Eliasson
The Weather Project
Mixed Media; light, mist, etc.
Dimensions varied
In this installation, The Weather Project, representations of the sun and sky dominate the expanse of the entrance to the Saatchi Gallery. A fine mist permeates the space, as if creeping in from the environment outside. Throughout the day, the mist accumulates into faint, cloud-like formations, before dissipating across the space. A glance overhead, to see where the mist might escape, reveals that the ceiling of the entrance has disappeared, replaced by a reflection of the space below. At the far end of the hall is a giant semi-circular form made up of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps. The arc repeated in the mirror overhead produces a sphere of dazzling radiance linking the real space with the reflection. Generally used in street lighting, mono-frequency lamps emit light at such a narrow frequency that colours other than yellow and black are invisible, thus transforming the visual field around the sun into a vast duotone landscape.
Eliasson’s impressive installation draws attention to the fundamental act of perceiving the world around us. But, like the weather, our perceptions are in a continual state of flux. The dynamic variations in the composition of the ephemeral elements of The Weather Project parallel the unpredictability of the weather outside, which despite the efforts and sabotage of humankind still remains beyond our control.
Olafur Eliasson was born in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark of Icelandic parentage. He attended the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen from 1989 to 1995. He currently lives and works in Berlin.
A Few Mornings After:
Lori Nix
City (2006)
Color photography prints
Most are 24" x 21", one 8" x 25"
Lori Nix is an American photographer whose principal theme is disaster, an interest developed during her childhood in rural Kansas when floods, tornadoes and other natural disasters seemed to occur with frightening regularity. A '70s trend for disaster movies seemed to complement this reality, and likewise provided a formative influence. In Nix's series City (2006), meticulously crafted scale models reveal the ravages of unspecified cataclysm. Although the photographs could, momentarily, be mistaken for factual records of real-life disaster, a self-consciously cinematic quality enables viewers to quickly ascertain their fictive status.
Nix carefully 'directs' her shots through elaborate framing devices and clever juxtaposition: the auditorium of a crumbling theatre is photographed as if from the stage, while in another image the gaping walls of a Natural History Museum reveal glimpses of the outside world alongside dioramas of taxidermied beasts. In keeping with these cinematic qualities Nix's post-apocalyptic vision is filtered through popular imagination, fulfilling its demand for cataclysm tinged with a glimmer of hope. Whatever catastrophe has engulfed the city, Nix is anxious to show regenerative nature at work. Plants reclaim the urban environment and animal life is glimpsed in otherwise forlorn spaces. Perhaps, in the best traditions of Hollywood, human survivors lurk somewhere in the ruins, ready to embark on the building of a new and better world.
Commercialism
James Hopkins
Design for Life, Black Still Life, and Last Days of the Sun, 2007
Mixed media
230 x 180 x 35 cm, 235 x 173 x 30 cm, 222 x 176 x 32 cm
Vanitas, a genre of painting particularly popular amongst 16th and 17th Century Flemish artists, focuses on the transience of life, the certainty of death and ultimate futility of earthly pleasure. UK artist James Hopkins' reworking of the theme depends, like all his work, on a visual sleight of hand which here transforms items stacked on shelves into a grinning skull, the ultimate symbol of impending death. The moral significance of the vanitas is cleverly updated to focus on the decadence of contemporary lifestyles, with champagne bottles, disco balls, and technological gadgetry all playing a part in the symbolism of the assemblage. Although Hopkins' tricksy art is beguiling and playful, it resonates with far more sombre sub-texts. Life is precarious, replete with illusion. The only real certainty is that it must come to an end.
Born in Stockport, Cheshire, UK, 1976 Lives and works in Guernsey and London
MA Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2001–2002 Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2000–2001 BA (Hons) Fine Art Sculpture, University of Brighton, 1995–1998
http://www.jameshopkinsworks.com/index.html
Oskar Dawicki
Armageddon
Polish artist Dawicki's spoof on newspaper obituaries is imbued with characteristically grim humour. The dozens of assembled names clearly resemble those of well-known personalities ranging from pop stars to politicians, despite their 'Polish' spelling. Dawicki's piece is titled Armageddon, and a glance at the dates on the obituary cuttings confirms the fact that all Dawicki's quasi-celebrities died on the same day. Despite its absurdity, Armegeddon fulfils the function of a sobering momento mori since, on one level, it is inevitably prophetic.
1971 born in Warsaw
1991-1996 studied at the Plastic Arts Department of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in ToruĊ
Lives in Warsaw.
Boo Ritson
Chips, Hotdog and Cup, 2009
By the Roadside, 2009
The Diner Waitress, 2009
Large Scale Color Photography
At first sight you are convinced they are sculptures; hunks of manipulated clay, or moulded metal coated in liberal layers of thick, tutti frutti-coloured paint. They could be unwanted mannequins, dolled up for one last turn. When first encountering the seminal work of Boo Ritson - whether coming face to face with a neat and knowing air stewardess or being floored by a wall of oozing burgers - it takes a while to grasp that behind the juicy facade are actual objects: in most cases, living and breathing human beings.
Since graduating from the Royal College of Art three-and-a-half years ago, it has been the 40-year old's prerogative to transform the genuine into the hyperreal, aided by lashings of household emulsion. The results are photographed immediately after the paint has been swiftly yet painstakingly applied by Ritson and her assistant Rebecca Mears in her studio.
Born 1969
Lives and works in Amersham, UK
2003 – 05 Royal College of Art, MA Sculpture
1999 – 2002 Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College. BA Fine Art (First)
Biological Complications:
Berlinde De Bruyckere
Marthe
2008 Wax, epoxy, metal, wood and glass
280 x 172.5 x 119.5 cm
K36 (The Black Horse)
2003 Polyurethane foam, horse hide, wood, iron
Overall size 295 x 286 x 158 cm
Acclaimed Belgian artist De Bruyckere poignantly evokes pain, isolation and death, with particular reference to tragic episodes in history such as the Holocaust and World Wars. Her practice consists largely of sculpture and installation, for which she frequently employs mediums such as wax, wood, fabrics and hair.
Animal skins are also a common feature, particularly those of horses, which she strongly associates with scenes of battle and carnage. Her pieces look like some sort of evolved or regressed species shockingly similar to modern life. They are alien in form, but their structures and physical allusions are too familiar. They are the effects of war and destruction.
Born in Gent, Belgium 1964
Lives and works in Gent
Luke Jerram
Smallpox, HIV and an 'Untitled Future Mutation'
Blown Glass
8cm each in diameter
These transparent glass sculptures were created to contemplate the global impact of each disease and to consider how the artificial coloring of scientific imagery affects our understanding of phenomena. Jerram is exploring the tension between the artworks' beauty and what they represent, their impact on humanity.
Jerram said, "It's great to be exploring the edges of scientific understanding and visualisation of a virus. Scientists aren't able to answer many of the questions I ask them, such as how the RNA is exactly fitted within the Capsid? At the moment, camera technology can't answer these questions either. I'm also pushing the boundaries of glassblowing. Some of my designs simply can't be created in glass. Some are simply too fragile and gravity would cause them to collapse under their own weight. So there's a very careful balancing act that needs to take place, between exploring current scientific knowledge and the limitations of glassblowing techniques."
Global Powers:
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Old Persons Home
2007 13 x life size sculptures and 13 x dynamoelectric wheel chairs
Dimensions variable
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu are two of China's most controversial artists, renown for working with extreme materials such as human fat tissue, live animals, and baby cadavers to deal with issues of perception, death, and the human condition. In Old Person's Home Sun & Peng present a shocking scene of an even more grotesque kind. Hilariously wicked, their satirical models of decrepit OAPS look suspiciously familiar to world leaders, long crippled and impotent, left to battle it out in true geriatric style. Placed in electric wheelchairs, the withered, toothless, senile, and drooling, are set on a collision course for harmless ‘skirmish' as they roll about the gallery at snail's pace, crashing into each other at random in a grizzly parody of the U.N.dead, in this exhibition, alluding to the remnants of the global powers after the oncoming apocalypse.
Artificial Intelligence:
T.V. Santosh
Counting Down, 2008.
30 fiberglass dogs, steel, LED counters, LED strips, paint.
Dimensions variable.
Counting Down reflects on the horror of Hiroshima through the recollections of Yoshitaka Kawamoto, a survivor of the atomic blast who was thirteen at the time. In Santosh's installation, a group of thirty chrome dogs are arranged in a grid, sentries guarding Kawamoto's words which slowly scroll in three digitised displays at their feet. The dogs conflate various beliefs and mythologies associating the animal with death. In the Hinduism of Santosh's native India, the dog is seen as a messenger of Yama, the god of death, and guard the doors to Heaven. The ancient Egyptians depicted Anubis, guide and protector of the dead, with a jackal or dog's head, while the great dog Amt stood sentry at the gate to the lower world. Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Greek myth, guarded the entrance to hell. On the back of each of Santosh's dogs an electronic clock performs a silent, never-ending countdown, the flickering red digits reeling perpetually towards unspecified calamity.
Arms Race:
Kris Kuksi
Churchtank Type 7C, 2009
Mixed Media Assemblage
16" X 19"
Gertrude Von Howitzerhen, 2009
mixed media assemblage
21" X 29"
Kuksi’s art speaks of a timelessness–potentiality and motion attempting to reach on forever, and yet pessimistically delayed; forced into the stillness of death and eternal sleep. He treats morbidity with a sympathetic touch and symbolizes the paradox of the death of the individual by objective personification of death. Baroque, bizarre and astonishing in their detail, Kris Kuksi's intricate models and three-dimensional reliefs envisage a post-apocalyptic world in which "new beginnings, new wars, new philosophies, and new endings" replace our own, jaded civilisations.
Born March 2, 1973, in Springfield Missouri and growing up in neighboring Kansas, Kris spent his youth in rural seclusion and isolation. Reaching adulthood, he soon discovered his distaste for the typical American life and pop culture, feeling that he has always belonged to the ‘Old World’. Kris’ work is about a new wilderness, refined and elevated, visualized as a cultivation emerging from the corrupt and demoralized fall of modern-day society. A place were new beginnings, new wars, new philosophies, and new endings exist. In personal reflection, he feels that in the world today much of mankind is oftentimes frivolous and fragile, being driven primarily by greed and materialism. He hopes that his art exposes the fallacies of Man, unveiling a new level of awareness to the viewer.
Anish Kapoor
Shooting into the Corner, 2008-2009
Mixed Media
Dimensions Variable
Kapoor's pieces are frequently simple, curved forms, usually monochromatic and brightly coloured. Most often, the intention is to engage the viewer, producing awe through their size and simple beauty, evoking mystery through the works' dark cavities.
Weapons come from many different sources and countries: they are sometimes highly sophisticated, while at other times they are hand constructed, crude versions of weaponry. Anish Kapoor's piece, Shooting into the Corner takes this idea and allows the viewer to be maniuplated into a specific relation with both space and time. Specifically with this piece the political notions of weaponry, death, and blood are all evident in the work. The weaponry involved in the arms race damages and destroys all in its way. No one knows exactly how far it will go.
Micropopulation:
Olafur Eliasson
Take Your Time
Circular Mirror
40 feet in diameter
Over the past 15 years, Danish-Iceland Olafur Eliasson has experimented with installations based on mechanisms of motion, projection, shadow, and reflection, creating complex optical phenomena using simple, makeshift technical devices. Take Your Time is a monumental installation, whose large-scale, immersive environments shift the viewer's perception and experience of place and self. A circular mirror, 40 feet in diameter and weighing 1,000 pounds, is mounted to the ceiling at an angle, rotating at one revolution per minute. The installation destabilizes viewer's perception of space as they pass beneath it.
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