THEATRUM NATURAE ET ARTIS (Theater of the Natural and Artificial)
NARROWS CENTER FOR THE ARTS Fall River, MA 02721 www.ncfta.org
November 5 - December 20, 2009
Space of Emplacement (for Galileo Galilei), 2009
pedestals, wood, three armadillos
I had this image of three armadillos in my mind for a long time. I always knew it would be rather hilarious, as if I had trained them for my own private circus. But I also felt they represented a shift in consciousness. I greatly admire certain aspects of the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s writing, especially his unfinished essay on Heterotopias. In the essay, Foucault refers to Galileo Galilei’s “space of emplacement.” As human beings, as societies, we are at times faced with imagery so unsettling, so new, that we feel the ground on which we stand disappearing. I love the image (although not true) of the armadillo, if frightened, being able to roll up, becoming a universe unto itself, and roll down a steep slope to safety
A Truth Which We Can Neither Reject Nor Completely Accept, 2009
taxidermy goose, lavender spray paint
The title is from the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty quoting Pascal in the essay “The Metaphysical in Man.” The taxidermist displayed the goose as flying and ready to land. Spray-painting it resulted in a new painterly and spiritual presence. The taxidermist aims for verity, the artist for metaphysical truth. Both look for drama.
Connecticut Yucca Cabinet (for Susan), 2009
Dried Yucca plant leaves and stems
This cabinet can be seen as a companion piece to the Orchid Cabinet, also on display in this exhibition. They were created at the same time. Helping a friend clean up her garden, I collected these Yucca plant sections. We admire, and enjoy, a plant while it is alive, but the dead and discarded parts hold great beauty, and seem to point us toward other realms of existence. Nature does not prefer any specific stage in its creations, only Man attributes value.
The Giraffe That Walked to Paris, 2009
Giraffe skull, display case
The title refers to the female giraffe that Muhammad Ali of Egypt gave to the French King Charles X. It was captured in Sudan as a young animal. Once in Egypt, it took a sea voyage of 32 days before it arrived in 1826 in the city of Marseilles in southern France. After staying in that city for the winter, she walked for 41 days and finally arrived in Paris, greeted by a crowd of 30,000. She lived for another 18 years.
Muhammad Ali at the same time sent two other giraffes to Europe, one to Vienna and one to London. The giraffe in Vienna survived less than a year, the one in London less than two years. Nevertheless, in all three cities a giraffe “craze” resulted from the presence of giraffes in Europe for the first time since the Renaissance, where the so-called Medici giraffe had arrived in Florence in 1486. After the Paris giraffe died, it was stuffed and put on display. It is now on display in the Museum of Natural History in the city of La Rochelle, west of Paris.
Zarafa: A Giraffe’s True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris, by Michael Allin, published in 1999, is one of several important books on the event.
Why the title? I guess to join an actual giraffe skull with this story in order to imagine, or relive, its magical presence.
Crisis of Narrativity, 2009 photo: Katherine Boucher
nine giraffe shoulder blades, pedestals, stands
In this work, the methodology of Minimalism is joined with the methodology of 19th century museums of natural history displays. Both methodologies aim to activate the space and call attention to it as a stage.
The intention in Minimalism is to bring the viewer into new awareness of being present, of sensing. The natural history museum dramatizes the hidden knowledge, or workings, of an unknown world (of wonder).
While tracking down giraffe bones for this work (through a dealer in Florida who acquires them directly from a South African government run giraffe reduction program), I read J.M. Ledgard’s extraordinary novel, Giraffe, published in 2006, about the tragic loss of the world’s largest herd of giraffes in captivity in Czechoslovakia (all secretly killed in a Zoo by the government due to an outbreak of a contagious decease). I therefore also see this as a monument for the Giraffes of the city of Dvůr Králové nad Labem / Königinhof an der Elbe (the Court of the Queen on the Elbe).
The Pessimism and Pensiveness of Late 19th Century Europe, 2002-09
two Alligator Gars, metal stand
Can the display of two Alligator Gars work as a visualization of the mindset of a continent at a specific time? This is the way I like to play with artwork and titles. Titles always come later. So do they detract or add?
What was the impulse for the work? I encountered the two South American gars in a store in New York seven years ago. They have followed me ever since. When I got a studio they obviously had to “activate” the space. They are truly amazing to me. The title is serious and tongue-in-cheek at the same time. What I enjoy is how we interpret, how we can play with imagery and real object, and tease out new meanings.
Real and Imaginary (Anachronistic fruit), 2009
Osage Orange from Fairhaven Massachusetts and Chinese imitation Osage Orange
Adam Leith Gollner writes in the extraordinary book, The Fruit Hunters, 2008:
“All species coevolve with other species. In certain cases, a plant’s evolutionary partner may be extinct, yet their fruits have somehow lived on. More than fourteen thousand years ago, giant sloths, mastodons, mammoths, elephantine gomphotheres and Hummer-sized beavers roamed the Americas. These animals, known collectively as megafauna, ate fruits like the osage orange. A knobby green fruit that lacks a twenty-first-century diner.”
Special thanks to Nate Bekemeier and Penny Brewer
The Merchant’s Tale, 2009
Bird of Paradise, metal pedestal, sconce
A 17th century Cabinet of Curiosity would have to have a Bird of Paradise. A collection of extraordinary objects and their stories would have to display the extraordinarily beautiful bird that had no legs and spent all of its life in the air. In Danish the word for sky and heaven is the same: himmel. Apparently the earliest traders in the Far East acquired these birds from natives who were only interested in the plumage and had taken out the skeleton and broken off the legs.
New Bedford Cabinet: Song of the Deep, 2006
glass and wood cabinet, three Coco-de-Mer
A highly treasured object in a Cabinet of Curiosities was the Coco-de-Mer, a double coconut that only grows on the Seychelles Islands. Early sailors would sometimes encounter them floating in the sea. The nut’s obvious relationship to female anatomy lends itself to many stories of undersea forests, mermaids, etc. It was not until 1768 that it was established where the Coco-de-Mer actually came from. The government on the Seychelles does not allow fertile nuts to leaves the islands, and make only a restricted number of emptied nuts available each year. It was always rare. It is now officially classified as a rare protected species.
Gelbe musik (Yellow Music), 2009
taxidermy canary, bird whistle, metal birdcage
This work is created in memory of the Danish composer and artist, Henning Christiansen, who passed away earlier this year. Henning Christiansen was an extraordinary example of an artist who, like the American artist and composer John Cage, used music and art and the creation of events as a vehicle for elevating – bringing consciousness – to our participation in ordinary life. He loved canaries, and created a symphony for, and with, canary song. Henning Christiansen is mostly known in the US for his extensive, early collaborations with the German artist, Joseph Beuys, and for being a member of the Fluxus movement.
The Iconoclastic Gratification of Detaching Oneself From Imaginary Satisfactions, 2009
seven vertebrae of a giraffe neck, black paint
The title is from the French philosopher Michele le Doeuff’s “Preface: The Shameful face of Philosophy,” in her essay collection The Philosophical Imaginary.
The Reintroduction of the Dimension of Affectivity Into the Analysis of Reverie, 2009
pedestal, giraffe foot
The title comes from the French philosopher Michele le Doeuff commenting on the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s poetics in the preface of her essay collection, The Philosophical Imaginary. The preface is a fine introduction to how a philosopher can never claim “an island” of objectivity on which to reflect. All philosophers proceed from images, however much they try to go beyond given concepts. A taxidermy giraffe foot is quite absurd (though I do wish to pay homage to it in the way it is displayed), and so is almost always a philosopher’s short statement, here le Doeuff’s, when presented out of context.
L'histoire genealogique des dieux des anciens, 2009
(Genealogy of Ancient Gods)
pedestals, five kingfishers
This work is inspired by the title page of a French book on ancient gods from 1609. In the 17th and 18th centuries, title pages and chapter vignettes are often inspired visualization of the expectations and playfulness of the time. I treasure the idea of representing ancient gods -- or perhaps the act of speaking about ancient gods -- as birds, as kingfishers.
Orchid Cabinet (for Victor Segalen), 2009
artificial orchid leaves and roots, wood and glass cabinet
This is the fourth work I have done this year inspired by Victor Segalen. The other three were an installation at the Artists Foundation in Boston, an installation of a limited edition work at Gallery 244 at UMASS Dartmouth, and a wall piece for an exhibition at the Peabody Historical Society and Museum in Peabody Massachusetts.
The French medical doctor, ethnographer, poet, and explorer, Victor Segalen (1878 – 1919) was not widely known during his lifetime, but has become increasingly important as we have moved from a narrow discussion of Colonialism, and a general sense of disenchantment, toward an awareness of the role curiosity, sensuality and delight play in consciousness. Segalen is especially important in the way he situates our awareness, whether we are in France or in China, in a situation of diversity and displacement. He calls for “absolute subjectivism,” questions our “mental tonality,” and asks us to continuously remain playful and observant, stating: “form being that artificial and miraculous thing that is art’s reason for being.”
Vignette, 2009
Three kingfishers, sconce
Ending a chapter with a vignette was a wonderful way to let the mind enter into another realm, letting us step out of deep concentration, or captivating illusions. Here the three kingfishers have entered a new space of conversation.
I am fascinated by 17th and 18th century Cabinets of Curiosity, and 19th century museums of natural history. In these historical collections we can follow the unfolding of Western Man’s relationship to Nature. In them is reflected the process in which Nature sees itself through the human eye, the human mind, and the human imagination.
In my work, I attempt to regain some of the territories that are inevitably lost as we more forward. In the era of early travel and colonialism, innocence and exploitation walked hand in hand. Today we have global exploitation and cynicism. I am interested in reconnecting to innocence.
I was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1947. Significant early memories are connected to visiting the Zoological Museum, at the time still housed in its original 1860s building at Copenhagen University. It was a magnificent example of early museum architecture devoted to extensive and rare collections of natural history, collections that unfortunately were placed in storage in the 1960s, when the museum was moved outside the center of Copenhagen.
I tend to believe that the roots of the artistic endeavor lie in what we experience early in life, perhaps in the years between seven and twelve. During those years, if we are fortunate enough to be within a rich cultural environment, we are able to experience music, literature, theater and museums that profoundly open up new realms of sensing and thinking.
I only began to see myself as an artist around 1994 (and have included some of that work in this exhibition) and it is only within the last five years that I have seriously pursued an artist’s career. Every time I approach a new subject matter, or a new area of investigation, I eventually realize that I am reconnecting to early childhood experiences. What is amazing, however, is that you as an adult can bring your present interests into this investigation, merging these different realms into new, playful, dramatic, or nostalgic dimensions, all dependent on where your intent takes you.
An area investigated in this exhibition has to do with natural and artificial: a natural fruit juxtaposed to an artificial fruit, for example. An artificial fruit can be seen as a work of art, just not one usually displayed in an art gallery or museum. It has a specific purpose -- often one connected to delight or beauty -- and is meant to participate in some ways in a decorative home or business environment. A taxidermy canary and a bird whistle likewise exist in separate environments. Once brought together, new association and visualizations are created. Storytelling and illusions -- imagery that works on many levels -- is what I truly enjoy.