calendario eventi  :: 

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26/4/2013

Two exhibitions

De Vleeshal, Middelburg

Annie Ratti - The Shroom Project

Curated by Lorenzo Benedetti

The Shroom Project comes from my physical and metaphysical fascination for mushrooms and more precisely for the psilocybin mushroom – the so-called magic mushroom – with regard to its hallucinogenic property.

My interest has covered many different aspects of the Fungi. Starting from their shape and moving on to their biological state, the way they grow and how they organize themselves in a rhizomatic way, as a huge extended net, covering the underneath of the surface of the earth. I am almost convinced that, when Deleuze and Guattari introduced the concept of ‘rhizome’ and the rhizomatic path alternative to the arborescent-root system, they were somehow translating and “transducting” the way mushrooms live and reproduce themselves.

Following this research, I have learnt how to grow mushrooms, considering this process as part of my artwork.

The idea of using and including natural alive elements and organic ingredients in the art process has a long history in contemporary art. Recently, I have been working with water, as an alive element, to be energized and purified and to be offer to the audience [Agua de beber, 2010-2011, Whitechapel]. In this project, I am developing further the question since I refuse any kind of image to better absorb with the idea that “thought lags behind nature (l’esprit retarde sur la nature)”.

Since the beginning of the project, I have been collecting books on the psilocybin mushroom that I decided to display as part of the installation. The publications explore different aspects of the subject; they contain instruction about how to cultivate magic mushrooms and how to consume them, as well as their composition. Other books present texts reporting on anthropologic research, acknowledging that the use of mushrooms is recorded since prehistoric time, when many cultures used them to accompany shamanic rituals related to different tribes and countries, beliefs and religions.

Recent studies – conducted at Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, London and at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore – have proved that psilocybin has a beneficial effect on depression. Psilocybin has been used in medical clinics in the UK and in the States to treat deep psychological traumas. Even so, most countries, including the United Kingdom, consider the consumption and cultivation of mushrooms illegal.

‘The Shroom Project’ consists of:

Two “Unités d’Habitation”: the ‘Incubator ‘ and the ‘Growing Room’.
Two similar architectures with different functions especially designed and built for the mushrooms reproduction. The first unit, the darker one, is the ‘Incubator’, built to host the spores disseminated in glass jars, containing a nutritious mixture. After a week or more, the spores will transform in mycelium, a white filament that is the underground plant of the fungi. Once the mycelium has developed, other organic ingredients will be added to the jars and transported to the second unit: the ‘Growing Room’. This is a brighter, warmer and more humid environment, where from the mycelium, the mushrooms will grow and become visible after 3-4 weeks.

Both Unités d’Habitation have security cameras installed in small opposite windows, so that the mushrooms are filmed whilst they grow and the space is kept under surveillance. From the recording of the security cameras will be created a film that will complete the installation.

The third element is: the ‘Essicator’, a functional sculpture conceived to dry the mushrooms. The mushrooms once full grown and ready to be collected, will be displayed on the little shelves of the ‘Essicator’. This contains a fan, a lamp to dry the mushrooms and a home made solar panel on its base, that will heat the structure to dry out the mushrooms when exposed outdoor to the sunlight. Once the mushrooms are dried, they will be sealed in glass jars, stored and exposed in a glass cabinet that will be locked.

Next to the ‘Essicator’ a small horizontal cabinet contains drawings made with spore prints on aluminum foil and on drawing paper.

I am still exploring and experimenting different kind of drawings made with spore prints – that just by themselves contain a all universe – creating an environment where the spore prints are disseminated on metal plates, that are posed horizontally almost on the floor level in conjunction with other panels, also invaded by the spore prints, made of metal, glass, and other different materials and leaning on the wall.

Presented on a wall there are series of photographs, taken whilst the mushrooms where growing, not just to document the different stage of their growth and their transformation but also their archetypical shape and their intriguing and beautiful presence.

From the early stage, this complex and elaborate process has been accompanied by a series of drawings referring to and inspired by the mushrooms.

Integrated as part of the work, ‘The Lab’ consists of a table and a trolley specifically designed, built to be used during this period. They contain all the instruments I have used for the process of (re)production of the mushrooms.

This work questions the function of ‘post-conceptual’ art and the role art still can play in our ‘late’ society. Breaking-through the archives of romantic conceptualism to experiment a rhizomatic principle of asignifying rupture on a ‘plateau’ where all differences vanish between nature and artifice.
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Koenraad Dedobbeleer - You Export Reality to Where It Is You Get Your Money From

Curated by Lorenzo Benedetti

Koenraad Dedobbeleer (b. 1975, Brussels) presents his first Dutch solo show, with new work at De Vleeshal.

A large framework of steel tubes supports the exhibition. Its design is based on a drawing by Sol LeWitt. Walls have been placed within this framework to create spaces in which works can be exhibited.

Dedobbeleer’s sculptures typically have a surreal twist. This Belgian artist’s work deepens our insight into the multiple layers of objects and their external properties. What makes something a sculpture? A material object can be seen as a sculpture in its own right and, simultaneously, as the basis for another sculpture.

An artist liberates everyday objects from their usual functions, changing their significance by placing them in new contexts. Koenraad Dedobbeleer misleads his viewers; the individual elements of the objects he creates look familiar, but the object as a whole is often disturbing. The artist transforms functional objects through the location-dependent placement and use of photographs, projections, film and writing. Objects become elements of a larger whole, fusing into a diverse range of spaces whose elements influence each other on various levels.

Opening: Saturday 27 April 5 p.m.

De Vleeshal
Markt, Zusterstraat 7, Middelburg
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 1 pm - 5 pm
Free Admission

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