Two Shows
dal 15/9/2006 al 10/11/2006
Segnalato da
15/9/2006
Two Shows
Galerie Conrads, Dusseldorf
Weather: In this series of large scale colour photographs there is an analogy which links the effects of climate, and climate change, on landscape and the human being with the effects of political and social 'climates'. Studio Portraits from Bamako 1960-1980 and early vintages.
Weather
In this series of large scale colour photographs "weather" is an analogy which links
the effects of climate, and climate change, on landscape and the human being with
the effects of political and social 'climates'. On a formal level the series
"weather" is a synthesis of the elements that have formed Laing's artistic practice,
bringing together the performative, documentary and object intervention strands. The
first part with 6 motifs was completed in august 2006.
Weather #5, (c-print, 124 x 168,5 cm, ed. 8) shows an isolated female figure against
a bluish skylike background. She is caught mid air in a maelstrom of wind. Buffeted
by the elements she seems to be moving through time as much as through space. This
image is one from the component of performative photographs in which Laing has
staged the effects of extreme weather conditions upon a performer. These images
provide a poetic counterpoint to the landscape photographs, as the human presence is
made palpable, but it is one that is suspended in a vortex of influence (climatic or
events) over which she can not exert individual agency.
These photographes continue Laing's interest in physics and movement as both
physical fact and symbolic metaphor. As with Laing's previous series, these images
are visually arresting embodiments of a skein of social, political and cultural
references, charted through particular places and histories.
Weather (Eden) #1 (c-print, 124 x 235 cm, ed. 8) is one of three location based
landscape photographs of the "weather" series. Eden was one of Australia´s most
important whaling centres, one in which a truly edenic landscape was the site of
belching blubber, processing works, and a bay rinsed red with blood during a kill.
With the collapse of the whaling industry and in recent years the tuna processing
plant Eden is a beautiful, decaying and scarred location (which has echoes in many
places around the world), haunted by this past and trying to find an economic future
through a now unsustainable fishing industry.
Turning the focus from the waterfront to the blasted melaleuca clad headlands shaped
by ferocious storms Laing has woven skeins of colour from nylon fishing nets into
this undergrowth, creating images of desolate beauty that catch an elemental
interplay between climate, economy, and histories of inhabitation.
raum2: Malick Sidibe' "Studio Portraits from Bamako 1960-1980"
vintage prints and newly printed silver gelantin prints
opening in presence of the artist: saturday september 16, 2006, 6 pm - 8 pm
Galerie Conrads
kronprinzenstr. 9 - Dusseldorf
opening hours: Tue-Fri 11 am - 6 pm, Sat 12 - 4 pm