Isabelle Andriessen Gives New Meaning to “Long Duration”, Emily Watlington, δημοσίευση στο Art in America [2/12/2022]
In the storied limestone caves of southern France, shimmering, milky calcite engulfs and preserves the skulls of extinct species—cave bears, woolly mammoths. Its presence registers the millennia that divide our existence from theirs, the slow movement of the mineral-deposit process emphasizing the duration of the mammals’ stillness. Dutch sculptor Isabelle Andriessen re-creates similar enchanting mineral and sulfate deposits in the gallery, creating installations that imagine planet Earth after our species has gone extinct.
Andriessen sets up systems in which inorganic materials undergo chemical changes—crystallization, oxidation—and her arrangements are at once elegant and dystopic. These systems typically include ceramic forms that appear both bone-like and futuristic, as if reminding us that the materials she works with predate and will also outlast us. Her clay components are often accompanied by water pumps and stainless-steel armatures—industrial devices that suggest our species’ material legacy. They also enable the works to perspire and leak. Porous, unglazed ceramic surfaces absorb water that changes their appearance over the course of an exhibition, so Andriessen often designs elaborate plumbing systems in the gallery. You won’t necessarily see a piece changing in a single visit to one of her shows, but in works like BUNK (2021), crystalline deposits in shades of teal that have oozed, then dried up on the gallery floor attest to ongoing reactions involving nickel sulfate, which is listed on the wall label as a material.
Η συνέχεια εδώ.