A group exhibition centered around cycles of displacement, both visible and invisible. Capítulo VII: Shifting Grounds places special emphasis on human impact on the environment, migration, identity, economic structures, and the action/inaction that leads to recurrences in these. Artists include Adel Abdessemed, Julius von Bismarck, Pablo Davila, Alicja Kwade, Ho Tzu Nyen, Nohemi Perez, the creative duos Elmgreen & Dragset and Trix & Robert Haussmann, and the artist group Troika. An accompanying essay will be written by conceptual artist Mel Chin.
“From colonialist conceptions of nature disguised as beauty, to questioning what makes up a region's identity, the worsening climate crises, voluntary blindness by humankind to our self-imposed catastrophes, and time that ticks as a warning; we have gathered a group of some of today's most innovative thinkers who through their artist practices allow visitors to join them in their quest to tackle some of our most pressing issues. Thus, art becomes a catalyst for significant social change through collective action. Simultaneously, it confronts us as individuals around the way we impact the environment that surrounds us”. Carolina Alvarez-Mathies, Artistic Director, LagoAlgo
Through large scale installations and sculptural works, the show expands upon LagoAlgo's trajectory of presenting exhibitions that address critical issues in the contemporary landscape. Jam Proximus Ardet, la dernière vidéo, 2021 by Adel Abdessemed (Algeria, 1971) offers an allegory for the tragedies that mar the Mediterranean Sea while borrowing the title from Virgil’s Aeneid, in which the protagonist realizes that the city of Troy is on fire and doomed to destruction. Fire and water – its natural counterpart – are the elements adopted by Adel Abdessemed to describe a powerful but fleeting entity in his piece. The video refutes the use of traditional narrative in favor of a single shot: a burning ship looms on the horizon, leading the viewer to believe that this could be a ready-made image. As the vessel gets closer, the viewer becomes aware of the presence of the artist, standing stoically on the main bridge, seemingly oblivious to the commotion unfolding behind him.
Testifying to the ongoing process of Europe’s appropriation of nature, Julius von Bismarck (Germany, 1983) presents 5 sculptural works from his series I like the flowers, 2023. The well-known children’s song lends its name to this series, which consists of plants and small animals that have been pressed flat. It consists exclusively of species not native to central Europe. One of them, the Bismarckia nobilis or Bismarck palm, originally from Madagascar, was dedicated to the first chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck. These days bearing the names given to them by their European “discoverers,” many of these once “exotic” plants now decorate offices and homes, while their native names are either forgotten or art unknown today in the Global North. At the core of von Bismarck’s practice is the question of how the conceptual split stipulated by man from his surroundings, through naming, classifying and creating systems, has gone hand in hand with control and domination of the environment –to increasingly disastrous effects– not just for nature itself but as a consequence of wider notions of humanity’s sovereignty, also for the lives of other beings, human and non-human.
Pablo Dávila’s (Mexico, 1983) interests and series of works are a constant exploration into space and time consciousness. Recurring to a minimalist approach, his work is informed by science, music, poetry, cognitive sciences and physical phenomena, so as to delve into notions of perception, the fleeting nature of time and historical interpretations. For this exhibition, LagoAlgo commissioned a site-specific mural titled Geomagnetic North Pole 85.76 N. 139.30 E, 2024.The work visualizes data from the magnetic North Pole's position on January 1, 2025 (85.76°N, 139.30°E, between Canada and Siberia). The Geomagnetic North Pole, where Earth's magnetic field points vertically downward, shifts continuously due to changes in the molten iron core. This movement is part of Earth's magnetic field, which serves as a distinctive "beacon" in space, helping to identify Earth among celestial bodies without such features.
Alicja Kwade’s (Poland, 1979) installation Die bewegte Leere des Moments (The Void of the Moment in Motion), 2019 leaves leeway for subjective perception and association. The threat it radiates makes itself almost physically felt. Or is it rather a feeling of uncertainty, of irritation that creeps up on the viewer? The stone with a diameter of about thirty centimeters hanging on a chain reaches to the ceiling. A large, two-sided analogue clock with a diameter of about fifty centimeters has been mounted across from it at the height of the lower, first story.
Ho Tzu Nyen (Singapore, 1976), presents an ongoing video project that originated in 2012, The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia (Cdosea). The work is meant to ask: What constitutes the unity of Southeast Asia — a region never unified by language, religion or political power? It proceeds by proposing 26 terms — one for each letter of the English / Latin alphabet. Each term is a concept, a motif, or a biography, and together they are threads weaving together a torn and tattered tapestry of Southeast Asia. The texts and notes of Ho Tzu Nyen are rendered into multiple takes of vocal performances by Singaporean musician Bani Haykal. The editing system selects from amongst these recordings as well as a library of Southeast Asian musical samples created by Japanese field recordist and composer Yasuhiro Morinaga. Cdosea is a platform facilitating ongoing research, a matrix for generating future projects and an oracular montage machine.
Nohemí Pérez's (Colombia, 1964) multidisciplinary work revolves around the relationship between humans and nature; the conflicts, tensions and genesis that arise from this constant friction. From notions of architecture, film and sociology, the artist proposes a re-reading of the territory of Catatumbo: a geographic region on the Colombian-Venezuelan border with a very particular natural and socio-cultural ecosystem. Since the conquest until today, Catatumbo is the scene of multiple conflicts that have been transformed to compose a complex web of anachronistic situations characteristic of contemporary Latin America. In this jungle region, illegal armed groups from the right and left, native tribes, evangelical missionaries, and large multinational mining and drug trafficking companies coexist.
Elmgreen & Dragset (Germany, founded in 1995) pursue questions of identity and belonging and investigate social, cultural, and political structures in their artistic practice. They are interested in the discourse that can arise if objects are radically recontextualized and if normal modes for the representation of art are altered. Boy with Drone (Marble), 2024presents a standing figure performing strange gestures. We share the same physical space with this representative of the near future, but we cannot communicate with him.
Since 1967, Trix & Robert Haussmann have challenged modernist doctrines through their "Allgemeine Entwurfsanstalt" (General Design Institute). Rejecting the Bauhaus principle of "form follows function," they developed "Manierismo Critico" (critical Mannerism), which revisits historical models with humor and self-mockery, updating them for contemporary contexts. Their work employs illusionism, using mirrors to dissolve volumes and create complex, infinite spaces, objects, and furniture that subvert traditional notions of value and order. Their piece Enigma, 2020 displays the sense of humor characteristic of their work, and looks like a personal interpretation of the Stonehenge monoliths. The medium was favoured by the artists for its optical ‘dissolution’ of space – its capacity to expand a room into the infinite and disturb its hierarchy, value, and order’
Troika (UK, founded in 2003) is a Franco-German contemporary art group working across media in sculpture, film, installation, and painting. Their work contemplates humanity’s experiences and attitudes towards new technologies and how these transform our understanding and relationships to nature, each other and the wider world. Their artworks broach themes that include artificial intelligence, algorithmic data, forms of life, and virtual and physical representation systems. Troika’s paintings titled Forest filled with Pines and Electronics present an alternative dramatization of adaptation to the screen, here questioning whether the forest itself can undergo such a process. Elaborating the representational logic of their previous series Irma Watched over by Machines, which was based on CCTV footage of damage inflicted by hurricanes, the present series reconstructs images of forest fires using only the sixteen shades of red, green and blue that form the basis of RAW digital images. Recognizing the increase in wildfire risk caused by climate change, as well as associated issues such as illegal logging, environmental monitoring systems have been put in place in many locations around the world. In the Internet of Trees, networked digital video cameras are attached directly to trees in order to detect early warnings of fire, at the same time rendering the cameras themselves vulnerable to flame. Troika’s Plant Fiction is an exploration into the role of nature in Western civilization, where over time, men have succeeded to define culture - especially the city - as a social concept intrinsically opposite to nature, a concept in which our drive for technological development and cultural refinement is fueled by the quest to control and understand nature.
Capítulo VII: Shifting Grounds is generously supported by Saundo System and Condesa Gin, with with additional support from Epson, Casa Dragones, RGMX and Felix.
