Are We There Yet
Are We There Yet
November 30, 2007 - February 2, 2008
Opening reception Friday, November 30, 6-8 PM
Gallery is closed December 22 through January 2.
Are We There Yet? focuses on works of art that reshape the notion of natural landscape in an active way, somehow corrupting the integrity of our own idealizations of it. Redefined by direct actions upon its elements, envisioned through the use of technology, or used as a point of departure for daring conceptualizations, natural landscape is followed and scrutinized in its continuous evolution of form and meaning.
“Are We There Yet?” the child’s obnoxious road-trip refrain, is a question/statement that implies a mix of excitement and inherent dissatisfaction with whatever place the parents might be driving to. Kids (…and artists?) are constantly expanding their knowledge of the natural world and raising the bar for future experiences. In short, they are perennially one step away from their own personal “frontier,” a place of learning as well as a physical threshold.
Are we all in need of a new frontier? All signs point to yes. We seem to be in constant need of expanding our boundaries, extending and streamlining the form and function of the natural landscape and adapting it to the speed, depth and quality of our daily life.
The outrageous, unsettling interventions of Bill Dolson, Marco Evaristti and Cyprien Gallard pave the way to an ephemeral, anti-monumental approach to Land-Art. Their unmediated approach flirts with vandalism to create statements: works of art that are concerned with the power, agency and the increasing responsibility of humankind for the environment. Our (now more than ever) radical ability and willingness to re-shape the sensible world as well as to “enhance” nature’s work is considered as a way to create new experiences, expectations and desires. Sharing a similar sensibility, the works of Stephane Couturier, John Gerrard, and Kazuhiko Kobayashi shift the focus from the landscape itself to our own personal perception and definition of it through the use of new forms of visualization and the definition of conceptually charged, unexpected point of views.
http://efa1.org/2007/11/02/are-we-there-yet/
