R
Feb 17–Apr 8, 2018

Unthought Environments

Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

Unthought Environments, installation view, 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Unthought Environments, installation view, 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Unthought Environments, installation view, 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Unthought Environments, installation view, 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Nina Canell & Robin Watkins, Near Here (1 Microsecond), 2014. Courtesy of the artists and Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Cécile B. Evans, Something tactical is coming (detail), 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Marissa Lee Benedict, points from five shade clouds (Ivanhoe, Elysian, Upper Stone Canyon, LA Reservoir, Las Virgenes), 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Unthought Environments, installation view, 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Nicholas Mangan, Ancient lights (Brilliant Errors), 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Labor, Mexico City.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Unthought Environments, installation view, 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Unthought Environments, installation view, 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Xaviera Simmons, Velvet, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and David Castillo Gallery, Miami. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Unthought Environments, installation view, 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Unthought Environments, installation view, 2018. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Jochen Lempert, Cloud Cover, 2013 (left) and Untitled (Wind), 2015 (right), 2018. Courtesy of the artist and ProjecteSD, Barcelona. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Transparent fabric prints of mountain and desert landscapes with a pink sky around a metal sculpture resting on a platform

    Daniel G. Baird, Meridian, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and PATRON, Chicago. Photo: Useful Art Services.

  • Start with the ancient elements—earth, water, fire, air—and then expand your view of our elemental world. Think about sunlight, weather systems, rare earth minerals, and electromagnetic forces, to name only a few other things. Phenomena like these are integral to our daily lives but they can be elusive, easily forgotten, or deliberately kept out of sight: the hidden components of our virtual worlds, factors in geopolitics, or deeper influences on human habits and cultures. What are our “unthought environments” today? Our elemental surroundings become another kind of vital infrastructure, seemingly there to be used and overlooked, but the elements have shaped us, too, and sometimes they veer into the foreground.

    Unthought Environments is informed by evolving discussions in various fields, including media studies, ecology, and philosophy. Against this backdrop, new and recent artworks offer a set of explorations with different focal points in the elemental sphere as it intersects with our more human-made domains. The artists’ videos, sculptures, photographs, installations, and digital images delve into the state of water in multiple countries; the mining operations that feed our computers; the effects of the sun; electromagnetic fields made visible; dust storms; and other phenomena brought to life.

    Curated by Karsten Lund.

    Unthought Environments is supported by VIA Art Fund, the Goethe-Institut, and Pro Helvetia.

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