Erika Harrsch "Inverted Sky"

ArtGate Gallery

poster for Erika Harrsch "Inverted Sky"

This event has ended.

Erika Harrsch’s solo show transforms ArtGate Gallery into a laboratory for thought on the joys and challenges that emerge from the intertwining of our lives in one global community. The thought provoking installations, kites, entomological boxes, and paintings of Inverted Sky create a weave of inter- esting perspectives: lives of individuals in nature, scientific calculation, com- merce and trade, and questions of global ethics. The exhibition invites the spectator to reflect, as the animated fluttering of paper butterflies in the installation Cashcube beckon viewers inside to witness species of currency butterflies. Some of these monetized butterflies are pinned etymologically as extinct specimens ready for inspection. Others migrate across paintings, sometimes freely and unpredictably, at other times suffering from the effects of economic choices on the natural environment. Harrsch invites us to consider how our lives are enmeshed in relations of interdependency.

The artworks in this exhibition depict a weave of parallel paths and interdependent dimensions that open up alternative outcomes for present and future lives. Will the precision of scientific objectification finally pin unique individuals into lifeless- ness? Both the warmth of a surrealist-like humor and the brilliantly colored species of butterfly-currencies suggest otherwise: nature and its interdependent individuals still has its chances, no matter how much late-modern technicians predict, meas- ure, and manage. The professional grade etymological butterfly boxes containing extinct European currencies -- Papilionnu- mismia Ephemerae Europeae -- are surely sites of amusement. Perhaps delicate and free flutterings of fragile living individu- als may yet create a promising inversion, where unreachable, cloud-like imaginings float down to earth and transform a com- modified environment back into an incarnate atmosphere open to creativity. In the new painting Twist, butterflies maneuver in an openness of air with uncharted possibilities. The sky is alive and there is an inversion at play.

The title “Inverted Sky” suggests a turning over of conventions and norms. Yet, exactly which inversions will emerge – and from what sources -- remains a question. On the one hand, the painting Melt shows a volcanic eruption, where the natural environment spews dust and smoke enough to paralyze a whole continent of finely-engineered aircraft. Nearby, wayward technologies spill oil. Both dust and oil cannot be separated from rivers and blood streams, visible in nearby parts of the composition. As the painting Pump suggests, the spell of spirals exists in the same world that displays ink-like splashes of petro- leum sludge. Harrsch invites each viewer to flutter-by and ponder the path- ways that are now unfolding for us. . She subverts easy stereotypes and leads viewers to the work of questioning, without imposing closure or set answers.

The new works at ArtGate also provide opportunities for fruitful comparison with some of Harrsch’s earlier installations, such as Eros – Thanatos (2006-2008). The visually stunning and deftly edited video footage, originally accompanied by thousands polycarbonate butterflies scattered on the floor, shows us an event that Harrsch witnessed personally at the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, in Mexico. The guiding thought of this earlier installation, also on view at ArtGate, seems to echo Freud’s contention that natural instincts and obsessions are the only genuine expressions of life purpose. By contrast, the whimsy and fluttering of unpredictable individuals navigating in the atmosphere of open sky suggest that each of us awaken to something more than a mere id if tranquility and equilib- rium are to flourish. The flights through airy spaciousness suggest that each of us does possess otherrootsofflutteringthatcannotbereducedtoviolenturgesbarelycontrolledbyego. Inthenew painting Twist, butterflies seem to maneuver in the openness of air and possibilities. The sky is alive, and the inversion at play here may stem from a living practice that scientific knowledge does not express.

Media

Schedule

from March 01, 2012 to March 31, 2012

Opening Reception on 2012-03-01 from 18:00 to 20:00

Artist(s)

Erika Harrsch

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