LONDON.- Pi Artworks London announces Will Nature Make A Man Of Me Yet? , the fourth exhibition to come out of the gallery’s ongoing collaboration with the Curating department at Goldsmiths, University of London. Each year Goldsmiths, University of London’s MFA Curating students are invited to propose exhibitions to take place at Pi Artworks London and the curator with the most exciting proposal is invited to realise the exhibition as part of the gallery’s summer season.
Through painting, video, collage, sculpture, performance and installation by huber. huber, Manuel Mathieu, Rachel McRae, Mark Salvatus, Victoria Sin, Omer Even-Paz, and a lecture-performance by Alex Anikina, Will Nature Make A Man Of Me Yet? asks how do humans and their creations adapt to uncontrollable environmental changes after centuries of ecocide? The exhibition presents a pan-global perspective on the issue of the Anthropocene, a term referring to an era that started when humanity began to have a significant impact on the planet. This is done through exploring gender, capitalism, identity, automation, materiality and the potential for nature’s reincarnation after the crisis.
huber.huber’s bubble machine spews black ink against the exhibition text on the white gallery floor – over time the text becomes increasingly difficult to read, alluding to the regulation of creativity by technology and playing with the curatorial figure as inconsequential. Mark Salvatus’ Current Affair$ [2014] shows flashes of all the world’s currencies suggesting the blur and meaninglessness of subjective value facilitated by paper money. This work is juxtaposed with Mountains [2015] a video of people climbing up and down a public overpass in Manila, Philippines. Victoria Sin explores consumer culture’s proliferation of images and representations of gender and nature within advanced capitalism by creating a forest of larger-than-life plastic banana balloons, which she has inflated by the entrance of the gallery. Rachel McRae opens up a discussion on environmental detritus as she gathers dust, bits of metal, and fragmented Roman artifacts from the river Thames, turning them into animated sculptures. Omer Even-Paz’s Frankenstein-ean construction mimics a hyena out of foil and other disparate materials. Manuel Mathieu’s Windchime [2015] appropriates abstract segments from images of political struggles aggravated by environmental concern that plays with the idea of a Thaumatrope – a toy that creates an illusion by combining two separate images into one. Alex Anikina looks into the anthropocentric camera with her video exploration of imaginary lands and the geography of world making.
The exhibition seeks to incite feelings of rage and exhaustion as we witness a new age where artists aren’t able to respond or take control because they are swept up in the current structures of things as much as anybody else. They are unable to view the Anthropocene objectively because they live deep within it. The feeling of frustration and incompetence weaves these artworks together, as the artists visualize the twenty first century’s environmental Armageddon.
