Dark Botanicals
by Laura Amann, curator Kunsthalle Wien
Part 1
…the weeds grew to knee height and then quickly withered into compost that gave off an ammoniac scent strong enough to make her pinch her nose. The compost ate away at whatever was below it, decomposing other greenery and leaving the earth below yellow and fallow…
…second stage was mold; the rot prepared the ideal condition for fungal spores to take hold, which would sprout and eat through what was left. Then, in an orgy of apoptosis, the plants and fungi would delete themselves along with what they had eaten...
…she was struck by the spectacular mess of her house; it was thriving, growing, and dying all at once, cannibalizing itself in programmed splendor… excerpts from the book Oval by Elvia Wilk
Eros once again limb-loosener whirls me
sweetbitter, impossible to fight off, creature stealing up… fragment of poetry by Sappho
Julia Kristeva's concept of the 'abject' as discussed in her book Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection from 1980 is fascinating for many reasons, but especially because it can be used as a powerful tool for understanding human psychology on an individual level, the same as mechanisms of exclusion and fabrication of the Other on a societal scale. It is a complex theoretical construct that explores the cultural taboos, borders of identity, and the human psyche, - so what happens when we view art through the lens of the abject, or better yet when art forces us to experience the abject?
Photo: Kunst-Dokumentation.com
Opening 20 June at Galerie Peter Gaugy in Vienna
Dark Botanicals
20 June to 20 July 2024
Theres Cassini Ernst Lima Lauren Nickou Ariadne Randall Letizia Werth Hamid Yaraghchi
“Dark Botanicals" is an exhibition showcasing six contemporary artists who delve into dark organic forms and psychological themes such as emptiness, fear, loss, decay, and transformation. Inspired by Julia Kristeva's concept of the abject—the unsettling collapse of meaning when faced with objects of repulsion —the exhibition examines the influence of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems in our reactions to art. It explores the notion that we may create artistic ideals to soothe our inherent existential anxieties.
