PAUL SPENDIER – SEASONAL DEPRESSION
2022-01-17At first glance, the space suggests a picturesque holiday image that evokes our collective desire for wellness. But on closer inspection, the sterility of the landscape, manifesting itself in steel, branchwood, and plastic, resembles a rather dystopian imitation thereof—what is authentic about this natural environment anyway? Seasonal Depression unfolds, dismantles, and reconnects our ironclad notions of the binary oppositions natural-artificial, individual-collective, and real-authentic.
The discourse around our current era, the Anthropocene, addresses the irreversible intervention of humans in their environment that has been fuelled by capitalism and colonialism. However, the notion of a pristine nature has always been fallacious: “The evolution of our “selves” is already polluted by histories of encounter; we are mixed up with others before we even begin any new collaboration”, writes Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing in The Mushroom at the End of the World. The cherry tree placed in the centre of the space loses its ability to change, which humans take over from now on. Thanks to magnets and screw caps, it is dead easy to take the tree apart using the building-block concept, just to put it back together again according to individual preferences. Here, nature is completely subjected to the visions of the rational homo oeconomicus who wants to conquer and dominate it, while at the same time does not want to recognise himself as part of it. The cherry tree rests on a pedestal made of stainless steel, which uproots it from its surroundings and turns it into an aestheticised reminder of the illusion of unruly nature. When trying to capture a piece of nature in a certain moment, any possibility of symbiotic collaboration is denied, which ultimately results in the subjugation of the environment.
Opposite – Schlafendes Flugzeug (orange gezeichnet), 2021
Exhibition runs through to February 26th, 2022
Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman
Seilerstätte 7
1010 Vienna
Austria
