BEIJING.- From 19 May 2018, Michel Comte presents Light III, in an exhibition featuring several works that explore the impact of environmental decline on glacial landscapes and our oceans.
The Swiss artist and photographer continues a series of evocative exhibitions begun in 2017 at the MAXXI museum in Rome and the Triennale museum in Milan, where the shows Light and Black Light, White Light opened last November.
The pieces for Light III are made in and made from China, both revealing and connecting to the effects of climate change in the country; Michel Comte has been in China for several months prior to the exhibition, sourcing materials and creating the works.
At the heart of Light III is a 580-piece porcelain installation completely done by hand, with layers of salt and pigment used to create a immense horizon of a dying glacier in full abstraction, acting as a symbolic reference to the environmental effects of pollution on glacial ice. This will be complemented by a large series of rubbings made from 580 porcelain pieces, as well as eleven salt and dust pigment paintings. In creating his exhibitions, Comte uses no artificial materials; everything he exhibits is manufactured locally.
Michel Comte’s Light series explores the impact of environmental changes by way of sculpture, (video) installations and photography. The first exhibition, Light, was held at MAXXI in Rome from 14 November to 17 December 2017. The second, Black Light, White Light, was presented at the Triennale di Milano from 28 November 2017 to 1 January 2018. These two exhibitions were curated by Jens Remes, who was also responsible for the art direction of the accompanying three-volume publication, Light, which features more than 500 photographs taken during Comte’s numerous mountain-climbing expeditions. In 2018, the Light series travels to China with the presentation of Light III in Beijing at Galerie Urs Meile. The artist is planning a major land-art project in 2019 in the Mojave Desert called The Ring of Fire. With it, he hopes to highlight another consequence of climate change, the increasing desertification of large swaths of the Earth. With these ambitious exhibition projects, Comte seeks to create awareness of climate change and call attention to its devastating effects.
Michel Comte is Swiss artist, photographer and environmental advocate. Originally trained as a professional art restorer, Comte is a self-taught photographer who has significantly influenced contemporary photography. In addition to his commercial work, he has collaborated on documentary assignments in war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Sudan and Cambodia for the international Red Cross and his own non-profit organisation, the Michel Comte Water Foundation. His recent works include the feature film, The Girl from Nagasaki (2013) — a retelling of the classic opera Madame Butterfly which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014, as well as his evocative and powerful Light series, which explores the impact of environmental changes via sculpture, (video) installations and photography.
