Law of the Land at Black and White Gallery
Black and White Gallery is proud to announce the opening of the spring/fall 2008 exhibition program with The Law of the Land by Kim Holleman.
*Village Voice: Best in Show
*Village Voice: Arts Section Feature
Are we living on the cusp of an Age of Extinction or an Age of Restoration? Are there sophisticated ways of designing aspects of the human enterprise - buildings, vehicles, technologies, cities, parks, etc. — so that they intelligently interact with living systems?
The works of Kim Holleman reveal an interest in following nature’s operating instructions to build environmental scenarios that can lead to healing the earth and supporting all beings in asymbiotic harmony, while also investigating where we have gone wrong. In this site-specific multi-media exhibition occupying both the interior and exterior spaces, such conceptions are put under scrutiny and given visual representation.
Law of the Land is structured in three 'acts'. The first act, Trailer Park installed on the street in front of the gallery and open to the public examines the paradox of inner/outer space by sheltering the completely functional ‘real’ park from environmental damage by placing the park inside a mobile Coachmen Travel Trailer.
In the second act, Playing God, installed in the indoor space, Holleman simulates natural environments to question human's attempts to dominate the earth and play at being gods. Detailed miniature landscapes that are playable vinyl records spinning and stopping, atop turntables standing in the space, reinforce the “playing god” theme.
In the pastoral landscape wall-mural entitled The Layers, Holleman rises to the challenge of establishing a human connection to the earth's most interior and vulnerable layers. This work draws analogies of various soil substrates to the emotions of human psychology, suggesting an allegorical “Earth-Body interface” to help bridge the human-soil divide. Creation myths and origin of life theories aside, it is obvious that our own fertility, and indeed survival, is inextricably connected to the fertility of the soils we live upon and how we treat them. Creating Life is a provocative series of glass microscopy slides. When shown blown up, they look unmistakably like the beautiful microscopic imagery we have seen of living organisms: protozoa, bacteria, blood cells, spores, mold, ice crystals, etc., but are all created out of artificial substances. Here, Holleman is asking how far we want to go in creating a “better life”.
In the third act, Future Mountain, Holleman appropriates the monumental format typical of earlier earth works to reclaim the outdoor space. Sculpting with chicken wire and colorful, yet ubiquitous and un-recyclable plastic bags, the artist constructs a startling 360-degree mountain range foliated as a life-like landscape. Future Mountain does not offer solutions to difficult environmental dilemmas. It communicates and connects environmental realities to a social and cultural context.
*Village Voice: Best in Show
*Village Voice: Arts Section Feature
Are we living on the cusp of an Age of Extinction or an Age of Restoration? Are there sophisticated ways of designing aspects of the human enterprise - buildings, vehicles, technologies, cities, parks, etc. — so that they intelligently interact with living systems?
The works of Kim Holleman reveal an interest in following nature’s operating instructions to build environmental scenarios that can lead to healing the earth and supporting all beings in asymbiotic harmony, while also investigating where we have gone wrong. In this site-specific multi-media exhibition occupying both the interior and exterior spaces, such conceptions are put under scrutiny and given visual representation.
Law of the Land is structured in three 'acts'. The first act, Trailer Park installed on the street in front of the gallery and open to the public examines the paradox of inner/outer space by sheltering the completely functional ‘real’ park from environmental damage by placing the park inside a mobile Coachmen Travel Trailer.
In the second act, Playing God, installed in the indoor space, Holleman simulates natural environments to question human's attempts to dominate the earth and play at being gods. Detailed miniature landscapes that are playable vinyl records spinning and stopping, atop turntables standing in the space, reinforce the “playing god” theme.
In the pastoral landscape wall-mural entitled The Layers, Holleman rises to the challenge of establishing a human connection to the earth's most interior and vulnerable layers. This work draws analogies of various soil substrates to the emotions of human psychology, suggesting an allegorical “Earth-Body interface” to help bridge the human-soil divide. Creation myths and origin of life theories aside, it is obvious that our own fertility, and indeed survival, is inextricably connected to the fertility of the soils we live upon and how we treat them. Creating Life is a provocative series of glass microscopy slides. When shown blown up, they look unmistakably like the beautiful microscopic imagery we have seen of living organisms: protozoa, bacteria, blood cells, spores, mold, ice crystals, etc., but are all created out of artificial substances. Here, Holleman is asking how far we want to go in creating a “better life”.
In the third act, Future Mountain, Holleman appropriates the monumental format typical of earlier earth works to reclaim the outdoor space. Sculpting with chicken wire and colorful, yet ubiquitous and un-recyclable plastic bags, the artist constructs a startling 360-degree mountain range foliated as a life-like landscape. Future Mountain does not offer solutions to difficult environmental dilemmas. It communicates and connects environmental realities to a social and cultural context.
