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artrepublic.com exhibition review - Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art |
| Written by Andrew Milledge | |
| Wednesday, 14 May 2008 | |
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artrepublic.com exhibition review presents your last chance to catch the Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art at London's Barbican gallery which ends on May 18th, 2008. Presenting contemporary art as if shown in a fictional museum conceived by, curated and designed for extraterrestrials, this ambitious, playful and irreverent exhibition transforms the Barbican Art Gallery into an imaginary museum, with a mission to interpret and understand contemporary art from the eyes of an alien. The project is in part inspired by the first chapter of 'Kant after Duchamp' by Belgian art historian Thierry de Duve, in which an imaginary anthropologist from outer space sets out to put into an inventory ‘all that is called art by humans’. Since Martians do not have art as a defined category in their culture, they classify and interpret their chosen objects without the ‘knowledge’ we know as art history. Instead, they treat works of art as artefacts: objects which serve a function, whether real or symbolic.The Martian perspective opens up contemporary art to fresh interpretations. Looking at contemporary art as though from outer space offers the potential to make the familiar strange and to the turn the dominant Euro-American art tradition into the ‘other’. It also raises pertinent questions about the use and value of contemporary art in human culture. The Martian Museum opens with a spectacular gallery conceived as the Great Hall of Ancestors. Presented within the category Kinship and Descent , works include totems, kinship diagrams, and various forms of ancestor worship. Thomas Hirschhorn ’s Musée Précaire Albinet (Lighter), 2004, is a four foot tall sculpture, in the shape of a cigarette lighter, featuring some of his artistic heroes such as Andy Warhol and Piet Mondrian. In Jay Heikes’, Family Tree, 2003, brightly coloured sport jackets hang from a suspended tree trunk, suggesting connections between social groups. Sherrie Levine pays homage to Marcel Duchamp by casting a urinal in bronze, a precious metal and traditional material for sculpture, and thereby amplifying the gesture of transforming a common object into a work of art. Magic and Belief includes works that involve the literal or metaphorical transformation of materials from one form to another. Joseph Beuys ’Capri Battery,1985, suggests that energy captured by the lemon from the Capri sun is magically transformed into a yellow bulb. Icons, relics and shrines also feature in this section. Andy Warhol ’s appropriation of the endlessly reproduced photograph of Mao Tse-Tung reinforces the Chinese political leader’s iconic status. OPENING TIMES: Mon - Sat: 09.00 - 23.00 Sun: 12.00 - 23.00 artzine Robert Rauschenberg Obituary The Cans Festival, London Two Brand New Graham Carter Prints Blek le Rat ‘Getting Through The Walls’ 1st Anniversary Party One Vintage De Pedro Available Dr D Limited Edition Prints C215 hits Tomtom Peter Blake box set to be released New staff at our Brighton gallery One to watch - IMBUE MissBugs |
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