BETALAND
15/03/–27/04/2019
AXEL BRAUN, SVEN DRUEHL, ROSEMARY LAING, STEPHEN SHORE, SASCHA WEIDNER, GUY YANAI
BETALAND
16/03/–27/04/2019
Artists reflecting the human relationship to nature from paradise to terraforming and back.
Axel Braun (German, born 1983)
Axel Braun’s long-term project Disturbed Harmonies [Towards an Understanding of Anthropocene Landscapes] is a collection of artistic case studies on the complex relationship between humanity and nature. Anthropocentric world views have entitled humanity to have dominion over nature in order to satisfy our growing needs. The result is a geological epoch that is defined by the noxious effects of human action on the Earth system.
Rosemary Laing (Australian, born 1959)
Rosemary Laing is esteemed within Australia, and internationally, for a career that has produced works of great appeal and cultural significance.Throughout her photography career much of the concepts she explored surrounded landscape photography both the cultural and historical aspects of this. Laing never digitally manipulates any of her images, which is what makes the subject matter in some of her images so surreal. Instead Laing uses the method of installation for many of her artworks,. For the shooting of her series „Paper“ (2014) large parts of forest floor were covered with fading newspaper sheets. By this procedure the artist adds a phantasmatic dimension to her ambivalent images, and not without an aperçu of loss: loss of nature and country, loss of stillness, loss of language. Thus Laing talks of “ghost images” in her notes, “coming at us from the future”.
Stephen Shore (American, born 1947).
We are pleased to present a selection of works from the iconic series „Uncommon Places“ by the groundbreaking American photographer and his project„Tall in Texas“, 1971, a set of offset lithographs, each 3 1/2 x 5 1/2″ (8.9 x 14 cm), coll. The Museum of Modern Art Reflecting Shore’s strong structural sensibilities, his photographs probe the relationship between real and imagined landscapes of the American west.
Sascha Weidner (Germany, 1976-2015)
We choose from his wide oeuvre the conceptual series “29 Palms“. 2014 on a trip in China Weidner photographed fake palm trees in Beijing none the less with knowledge of the palm motif in the works of important artist colleagues.
Painting by Sven Drühl (German, born 19 and Guy Yanai (Israeli, born 19 ) , both explicitly address the perception of nature although in quite different ways, complements the exhibition.
