#postcommodity

Sarah Meyohas, “Interference #19”, 2023, Holograms, mirrored black glass, aluminum

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Poppy”, 1927, Oil on canvas

Francis Picabia “The Church of Montigny, Effect of Sunlight” 1908, Oil on canvas (left); Christian Sampson “Projection Painting”, 2023, Acrylic and films with LED light; and Claude Monet “The Houses of Parliament, Effect of Fog, London” 1904, Oil on canvas (right)

The Nature of Art exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg merges art from the museum’s collection with loaned works to explore- “art’s crucial role in our evolving quest to understand our relationship with nature and our place in the cosmos”.

One of the benefits of an encyclopedic museum is that visitors have the opportunity to experience art throughout history, and to revisit works that resonate with them. For the section titled Artist as Curator, Sarah Meyohas and Christian Sampson chose pieces from the museum’s collection to pair with their own work.

From the museum-

At first glance, perhaps, these may seem like unusual combinations, but upon deeper contemplation, their selections reveal complementary artistic intents. For instance, Meyohas and Georgia O’Keeffe share an interest in close looking, particularly in finding new ways to examine underappreciated aspects of the natural world. Sampson, influenced by the California Light and Space Movement, is interested in current scholarship that suggests the hazy fog found in Claude Monet’s work is an early depiction of air pollution, offering an entirely new perspective on the artist’s representations of light.

Sampson also created the four-part installation, Tempus volat, hora fugit, on view until 2025 at the museum.

Below are some of the works from additional sections of the exhibition.

Postcommodity, “kinaypikowiyâs”, 2021, Four 30.5-metre industrial debris booms

Postcommodity is an interdisciplinary art collective comprised of Cristóbal Martínez (Genizaro, Manito, Xicano), and Kade L. Twist (Cherokee).

About Postcommodity’s work, kinaypikowiyâs, (seen above) from the museum-

This work is composed of debris booms, used to catch and hold environmental contaminants such as garbage, oil, and chemicals. The colors of the booms correspond to different types of threats— red (flammable), yellow (radioactive), blue (dangerous), and white (poisonous)-in the labeling system for hazardous materials. To indigenous peoples, these are shared medicine colors that carry knowledge, purpose and meaning throughout the Western Hemisphere. Suspended like hung meat, the booms represent a snake that has been chopped into four parts. Each part represents an area of the colonial map of the Western Hemisphere: South America, Central America, North America, and all of the surrounding islands. The title, kinaypikowiyâs, is a Plains Cree word, meaning snake meat. Divided by borders, Postcommodity asserts that all people living in the Americas are riding on the back of this snake.

James Casebere, “Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY), 2009, Archival pigment print mounted to Dibond

James Casebere creates architecturally based models for the large scale photographs seen above.

Duke Riley's Reclaimed ocean plastic sculptures and “Tidal Fool” wallpaper

Duke Riley’s work, which was previously shown at Brooklyn Museum, addresses issues of environmental pollution by using discarded plastics found in the ocean and other waterways to create new work inspired by the past. You can hear him discuss his work in this video.

From the museum-

Inspired by the maritime museum displays he saw while a child growing up in New England, Riley’s scrimshaw series is a cutting observation of capitalist economies-historic and today-that endanger sea life. The sculptures were created for the fictional Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum, and are contemporary versions of sailors’ scrimshaw, or delicately ink-etched whale teeth and bone. Riley first thought about using plastic as an ode to scrimshaw when he saw what he thought was a whale bone washed up on the beach in Rhode Island; it turned out to be the white handle of a deck brush. Riley regularly removes trash from beaches and waterways, and often uses this refuse in his work.

Riley collaborated with Brooklyn-based Flavor Paper to create these two custom wallpapers for his solo exhibition DEATH TO THE LIVING, Long Live Trash at the Brooklyn Museum. Tidal Fool exhibits Riley’s trademark humor in the face of devastating water pollution; notice the Colt 45-guzzling mermaid. Wall Bait vibrantly references Riley’s meticulous fishing lures, which he crafts from refuse found in the waters around New York City.

Daniel Lind-Ramos,"Centinelas de la luna nueva (Sentinels of the New Moon)", 2022-2023, Mixed media

From the museum about this work-

In Centinelas de la luna nueva, he evokes the elders of the mangroves, spiritual beings who watch over and ensure the health of this essential coastal tree. Mangroves are the basis for a complex ecosystem that shelters sea life and serves as the first line of defense in the tropical storms that batter the sub-tropics -including Florida.

Lind-Ramos's practice reflects the vibrant culture of his native Loíza, Puerto Rico, by honoring local agriculture, fishing, cooking, and masquerade. His sculptures also evoke Hurricane Maria (2017), the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing environmental degradation. Lind-Ramos is committed to the survival and sustenance of Afro-Taíno traditions and people of the Puerto Rican archipelago. However, his art engages the global community through shared emotions, parallel histories, and the commonality of human experience.

Recently published on Sightlines: 10 Artists on Rescinding DACA

PORTLAND 🌕 Beginning tonite, join @heterogeneoushomosexual & @awapuhilah for a series of outdoor projections in the Indigenous lands of the Chinook. Bringing the messages to the people. We are honored to be projecting over @jessehazelip 's MNI WICONI 🐍🗡 #BLACKSNAKEKILLA mural at @ffttnw - we will also be projecting on the side of @raccpdx after sundown ✨. Shoot me a DM for more info. b tru -n- cum thru 🕸.

Nothing is Natural is a performative art exhibition initiated by R.I.S.E.—Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment—in collaboration with interdisciplinary art collectives Winter Count and Postcommodity. The exhibition’s call-and-response nature underscores the significance of convergence, amplifying the artists’ responses to: social and environmental injustice; migration/movement/evolution; sanctuary; Indigenous Survivance; trust; and the resilience of culture despite forced relocation and resource extraction. The project unfolds throughout the restored Reed College Canyon and its natural water source Crystal Springs. Nothing is Natural is an on-going ceremonious act merging the inherent politics of Indigenous sovereignty, social capital, and the protection of land, water, air, and body.

I have heard about PostCommodity before, and have seen videos of his art. I remember hearing about his pieces during Art Seminar and making connections about art in nature, and installations that are presented outside representing different topics. PostCommodity as well as others made me really think about how art can be presented in so many different ways, from indoor spaces to outdoor spaces to a blend of the two. I love the personal feelings that Postcommodity relates to the viewers, and how the land has its personal art history and is utilized for its own sake instead of for representation of a different topic. 

Describe Gabriel Orozco and Andy Goldsworthy’s process of making work?

  Gabriel Orozco lacks a studio, finding that many studios have the inability to connect to reality all the time. He works outdoors, being intimate with everything associated with reality. His work is experimental and opportunistic, having lots of different ways to invent and create. Goldsworthy works similarly, with his work also primarily taking place outside- sometimes on others’ property. He has little plan of what is going to come of his art, with everything being dependent on the natural world around him. The world is the supplier of direct inspiration for him.

-How do they use the materials they find?

  Orozco creates small, hidden installations with the objects he finds. The materials are often manmade, and therefore have a strictly human atmosphere when put into one of his pieces. Goldsworthy’s materials are completely from nature and nature alone; he uses these materials in order to create art through the breath of Gaia. He creates structures with Earth’s materials that could, in another world, pass as a naturally magical act completed without the assistance of people. Something about his art feels like whispers from nymphs. 

How was land art, environmental art, or site specific art trying to break away from modernist forms of sculpture?

  Land art, environmental art, and site specific art are breaking from modernist forms of sculpture in terms of space and eternity. It differs in terms of space due to not being kept in a small, white-walled museum room; the land art isn’t likely to have a plaque describing the artist’s intentions nor method of creation. It’s not often pristinely clean, either. In forms of eternity, it isn’t as such. Art that is kept in museums is, ideally, meant to last for longer than it would in the natural world. The pieces are free from exposure to the elements, from other people. Environmental art is just the opposite. With the art more often than not being a part of the land, it will eventually become the land again; the pieces are not meant to last forever. Life is fleeting, and the pieces should be as well. 

What are some of the different ways that artists engage with different sites that you found interesting?

  I’m always partial to Goldsworthy’s use of the natural land to create magic within nature, but I liked the Repellent Fence from the “Borderlands” video. The piece not only interacts with the nature and man-made aspects of the land, but it speaks to so many people in North America. The connecting of both Mexico and the United States via the use of balloons as an adjacent “fence” is mind-blowing.

How do indigenous artists like Post-Commodity and Cannupa Hanska Luger relate to the land in ways that are different from other artists?

Reading the passage “Definitions” by Pablo Helguera, it gave me a new insight about the definitive element of socially engaged art. I learnt from the passage how it is important to identify the difference between a project by an established health campaign that has an intention to be engaged in a political issue and a project in which the audience establish a health campaign.