‘We dig, pump, frack, and dredge through earth’s crust to get to the materials we need, the sheer endless amount of sand in the desert dazzles us, depositional sediments are shaped into something new within a blink of an eye, the future ruins will start to slowly decay again, the environments change and surfaces transform, pressed, casted, hardened, bonded, what comes after the exploitation, sand corns become stars and we lie vulnerable on the ground looking up to them, how will it feel, dredge my dreams, loosing ourselves in the starry sky, imagining our lives in a bigger picture, everything needs to adjust, like floating molecules on a sunny sky, the industrial and capital spaces that we are, recreational realness in some recreated surroundings, taken from a natural habitat and placed in a new order, seamless patterned, rendered surfaces in virtual spaces, how we find the answer in the void.’ Daniel V. Keller.
High Gallery is pleased to present Daniel V. Keller’s first solo show in Poland. The exhibition “Container and Decay” strives to shed light on questions about the uncertainty of a near future scenario’s and changes on the planet based on artist’s focus on tourism industry, capitalistic exploitation of natural resources, but also how human kind will adapt in this new environment.
The gallery is dominantly occupied with the hanging construction called FiNite. It symbolises a container, a reservoir of a resource in the shape of one half of an hour glass. Similar to a balloon that has been inflated with hot air. Blown up but actually empty. The constriction, the spot where it moves into the opposite part is cut open instead and gives the viewer an insight into the volume. The void of the container emerges into a dark infinite universe. Maybe a journey that will lead us to answers or just leave us speculating into the void.
Covered in the bleached freshness of their appearance one can find almost ironic indication of a changing environment on the towels placed in the installation. Is it a feeling of hospitality or well-being or rather maybe sterility and distance that is transmitted here? Concrete defence structures embroidered on the fabric function as a kind of logo of coast-lines today, landscapes where humankind is channeling and fighting waters. In Pattern Attempt (today) visual information of sequence stratigraphy drawings, a scan of sedimental layers of the planet becomes design patterns. Accompanied with a glossy foil with a seamless surface used in digital renderings, this work arises questions on the land use and management but also the very idea of landscape itself.
The stones we depend and life on and the new stones we compose.
Crumbling artefacts, fossilised lines of today, souvenirs maybe… The idea of formation and the architectonical element of a unit, a brick, a stone, one on top of another. Fundament to high rise. The pressed relief blocks in the show function as an indicator of a time and history. Like prehistoric objects they disclose an encrypted knowledge based on a sign language. Do they show documentation of the past or might it be a prediction for the future?
Thoughts drifting in space are captured and materialised in an ephemeral way. The works are an attempt to think of natural resources and how they relate to our being in an environment. Fractured in segments, complex and abstract in their appearance, they reflect on an entangled world and minds in it.
Imprint
| Artist | Daniel V. Keller |
| Exhibition | Container and Decay |
| Place / venue | High Gallery, Poznań |
| Website | galleryhigh.com |
| Index | Daniel V. Keller High Gallery |