Interfaces Between Nature and Civilization
True North
at the Deutsche Guggenheim
A Journey to the End of the
World: North and South Pole, mountains and glaciers, outer limits of ice
and snow. In the exhibition True North, the Deutsche Guggenheim
presents works by seven contemporary artists whose photo and video works
critically examine the tradition of romantic landscape painting.
Thomas
Flechtner, Glaspass (Walks #10), 2001
©
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2007, 2001 Thomas Flechtner
There's
hardly a region on this planet that's been more subjected to legend and
myth than the North. In our imagination, it's always a rugged, untouched
terrain where humans have to defend themselves against a magnificent and
pristine nature, or overcome it in true pioneer spirit. The image of the
North is colored by the romantic and heroic European and North American
landscape paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries; it is also closely
connected to the early days of photography, which allowed a wider public
to feel part of the struggle against glacier and ice, such as the
legendary North Pole expeditions of Robert
E. Peary, Matthew
Henson, and Frederick Cook,
and the founding of research and trade stations as outposts of the
"civilized world."
Stan
Douglas, Nu.tka., 1996 (Installationsansicht)
Foto:
Courtesy the artist und David Zwirner Gallery, New York
©
Stan Douglas
This stereotypical perspective
is called into question by the contemporary positions in True
North, which touch upon some very current themes. Particularly
today, in a time shaken by social uncertainty and ecological catastrophe,
a longing for an unspoiled place of refuge seems to be on the rise. At the
same time, the impossibility of true escape is all too apparent. While Caspar
David Friedrich once postulated that painters should not merely paint
what they see before them, but also what they see within, we know today
that this view of our own inner nature is always culturally influenced – a
mirror of our time. This paradox also finds expression in contemporary
art: there's hardly another theme that has inspired the young scene over
the past several years more than the critical examination of the romantic
tradition. Yet in contrast to their predecessors, the works of Stan
Douglas, Olafur
Eliasson, Elger
Esser, Thomas
Flechtner, Roni
Horn, Armin Linke,
and Orit Raff
refer to critical standpoints on history, the environment, and politics.
Their
analytical interest is particularly directed at the interfaces between
nature and civilization and the relationship between reality and media
representation. For the international artists that have lived or worked in
different regions of the North, it's a matter of questioning to what
extent technological and cultural progress, colonization, and the
development of remote landscapes to accommodate tourism have altered our
perception of the North. At the same time, the works, largely on loan by
the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, document ecological destruction, the repression of
indigenous culture, and the loss of original free space and identity.
Roni
Horn, Pi, 1997–98 (Detail),
Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
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The horizon – or its absence – is a leitmotif that carries
throughout the exhibition. In Pi (1997-98), a room-sized all-around
panorama of photographs, Roni Horn focuses on several cycles that take
place in and around Iceland: one couple can't miss a single series of Guiding
Light, while eider ducks embark on their journeys and animals perish
and are transformed into taxidermist's specimens.
Olafur
Eliasson, The glacier series, 1999
Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
©
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson's The
glacier series (1999) arranges 42 pictures of a glacier taken from a
propeller airplane in the form of a serial grid. The horizon, pushed to
the edge of the picture, prohibits any romantic association with the
images. On the other hand, the boundaries of the visual field in Elger
Esser's Ameland-Pier X, The Netherlands (2000) remain the
only recognizable feature in a dematerialized white seascape.
Elger
Esser, Ameland-Pier X Courtesy Elger Esser,
©
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008
Other works, such
as Palindrome (2001) by Orit Raff or Glaspass (Walks #10)
(2001) by Thomas Flechtner make it clear how futile approaches to the
northern world are that place extreme demands on the human capacity for
action and survival. The actress in Raff's video compulsively stacks up
felt mats to create warmth. Her futile efforts seem even more puzzling
when compared with the simultaneous film sequence of a coyote nimbly
roaming through its frozen territory.
Orit
Raff, Palindrome, 2001 (film still)
Courtesy
the artist and Julie Saul Gallery
©
Orit Raff
Flechtner,
who often makes trips to the farthest reaches of the world, questions
human presence in the northern landscape. His photo piece Glaspass
(Walks #10) documents the ski tracks the artist drew into the
topographical contours of a snow cliff. In contrast, the skiers in Armin
Linke's Ski Dome, Tokyo, Japan (1998) have fun in the artificial
North of a ski dome on the outskirts of Tokyo, which has since been torn
down.
Armin
Linke, Ski Dome, Tokyo, Japan (from the Global Box series, 1998–2000),
1998
Photo: Courtesy Galleria
Marabini,
© Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York
©
Armin Linke
But beyond this, True North
examines the function of the North as a place of political conflict and
historical repression. In his video installation Nu•tka•
(1996), Stan Douglas reveals the immanent contradictions in Western
Canada's wilderness by superimposing two staggered film sequences of the
remote area, combining them with voiceovers that include explorers'
reports from the 18th century. Douglas characterizes the North as the site
of traumatic loss, whose landscape is scored by human dissension.
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