KLAT
27 Nov 2009 - 14 Feb 2010
"Ex caligine, nova insigna: anaphoros | Gegenschein", 2009,
Installation, Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris, 2009. (photo © Florian Keinefenn. Courtesy Galerie Laurent Godin)
Installation, Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris, 2009. (photo © Florian Keinefenn. Courtesy Galerie Laurent Godin)
KLAT
TENNESSEE WIGGLER THE BIG FAT WORM AKA LE LOMBRIC COSMIQUE
(3rd floor)
27th November 2009 – 14th February 2010
Opening 26th November 2009, 6 to 9 p.m.
The Centre d’Art Contemporain Genиve is pleased to announce KLAT’s new solo show. On this occasion, the group will present “TENNESSEE WIGGLER THE BIG FAT WORM AKA LE LOMBRIC COSMIQUE”, a new installation specially designed for the display spaces within the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genиve.
This monumental sculpture represents a giant earthworm that spreads across the exhibition rooms. The project is freely inspired by the post-apocalyptic visions in J. G. Ballard’s first four novels “The Wind From Nowhere”, “The Drowned World”, “The Drought”, and “The Crystal World”. In each room, a part of the worm’s body is associated with one of Ballard’s destructive natural elements: fire, air, or water. The earthworm also symbolically represents an ecological cycle.
The earthworm has the shape of a snake, whose figure is ambivalently connoted, both sacred and evil, in many cultures. The reptile is mentioned in the very title of the work, as it refers to anthropologist Jeremy Narby’s “The Cosmic Snake”, which analyses the shamanic practices of certain Latin American ethnic groups. KLAT also takes inspiration from alchemists’ snake symbolism – the figure of Ouroboros. When the animal bites its tail, having neither beginning, nor end, it symbolises the “Magnum Opus”, an esoteric representation of the evolution towards perfection in nature. This vision of the alchemical transformation echoes biodegradation and life cycles.
Both disgusting and fascinating, the cosmic earthworm offers food for thought about our human condition in a clinical industrial world. In his novels, Ballard focused on analysing how our capitalist society works, imagining its possible excesses through dystopias – fictional narratives of disaster. What would a human being be in a hostile and untameable nature similar to that described in these sci-fi novels? Which species would survive and how would they recover life cycles?
While KLAT’s practice clearly belongs to the art world, their earmark is a combination of great
accessibility and a strong awareness of political issues. With the “TENNESSEE WIGGLER THE BIG FAT SQUIRM AKA LE LOMBRIC COSMIQUE”, the KLAT group reaffirm their interest in suggesting alternative models of social organisation. They propose an eerie, disturbing object that reflects a crooked image of our future, and that paradoxically carries tangible alternatives for the consumer society.
Beyond its environmental implication, the work also provides criticism of the art world. The cosmic earthworm is a sculpture that interferes with the institutional white cube and “sullies” a space that is normally shielded from the outside world. It is intended in the first place to the citizen-viewer, and belongs to the history of institutional criticism, an element that is indivisible from KLAT’s practice.
KLAT belong to a tradition that originates in Group Material’s political practices, and in alternatives to the art market that were developed in the 1990s by Parasite’s artists in New York.
Exhibition curator: Denis Pernet
TENNESSEE WIGGLER THE BIG FAT WORM AKA LE LOMBRIC COSMIQUE
(3rd floor)
27th November 2009 – 14th February 2010
Opening 26th November 2009, 6 to 9 p.m.
The Centre d’Art Contemporain Genиve is pleased to announce KLAT’s new solo show. On this occasion, the group will present “TENNESSEE WIGGLER THE BIG FAT WORM AKA LE LOMBRIC COSMIQUE”, a new installation specially designed for the display spaces within the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genиve.
This monumental sculpture represents a giant earthworm that spreads across the exhibition rooms. The project is freely inspired by the post-apocalyptic visions in J. G. Ballard’s first four novels “The Wind From Nowhere”, “The Drowned World”, “The Drought”, and “The Crystal World”. In each room, a part of the worm’s body is associated with one of Ballard’s destructive natural elements: fire, air, or water. The earthworm also symbolically represents an ecological cycle.
The earthworm has the shape of a snake, whose figure is ambivalently connoted, both sacred and evil, in many cultures. The reptile is mentioned in the very title of the work, as it refers to anthropologist Jeremy Narby’s “The Cosmic Snake”, which analyses the shamanic practices of certain Latin American ethnic groups. KLAT also takes inspiration from alchemists’ snake symbolism – the figure of Ouroboros. When the animal bites its tail, having neither beginning, nor end, it symbolises the “Magnum Opus”, an esoteric representation of the evolution towards perfection in nature. This vision of the alchemical transformation echoes biodegradation and life cycles.
Both disgusting and fascinating, the cosmic earthworm offers food for thought about our human condition in a clinical industrial world. In his novels, Ballard focused on analysing how our capitalist society works, imagining its possible excesses through dystopias – fictional narratives of disaster. What would a human being be in a hostile and untameable nature similar to that described in these sci-fi novels? Which species would survive and how would they recover life cycles?
While KLAT’s practice clearly belongs to the art world, their earmark is a combination of great
accessibility and a strong awareness of political issues. With the “TENNESSEE WIGGLER THE BIG FAT SQUIRM AKA LE LOMBRIC COSMIQUE”, the KLAT group reaffirm their interest in suggesting alternative models of social organisation. They propose an eerie, disturbing object that reflects a crooked image of our future, and that paradoxically carries tangible alternatives for the consumer society.
Beyond its environmental implication, the work also provides criticism of the art world. The cosmic earthworm is a sculpture that interferes with the institutional white cube and “sullies” a space that is normally shielded from the outside world. It is intended in the first place to the citizen-viewer, and belongs to the history of institutional criticism, an element that is indivisible from KLAT’s practice.
KLAT belong to a tradition that originates in Group Material’s political practices, and in alternatives to the art market that were developed in the 1990s by Parasite’s artists in New York.
Exhibition curator: Denis Pernet