UnNaturally features works
by eighteen artists who employ artificial materials to create
simulations of nature, exploring the ways in which the boundaries
between nature and culture are sometimes blurred, and raising
provocative questions about our mediated environment. These works
play on our nostalgia for an idealized pre-industrial past in
which man and nature coexisted harmoniously in an unspoiled landscape,
the same nostalgia that has given rise to constructed environments
in malls, zoos, and other themed “entertainment destinations”
where nature is tamed and packaged for consumer use.
Through an art of studied verisimilitude, impressive craftsmanship,
and occasional deadpan use of irony, the artists presented here
suggest that the natural world can be reproduced with man-made
materials just like any other mass-produced commercial product.
Gregory Crewdson photographs his own meticulously constructed
scenes that imitate natural settings, challenging viewers to question
the notion of “reality.” Steel, epoxy, plaster, polymer,
and other “un-natural” materials are transformed into
surrogates for nature by such sculptors as Jason Middlebrook,
Roxy Paine, and Michelle Segre, making us ask whether such “new-and-improved”
stand-ins outweigh the benefits of the unmediated experience of
nature. Other sculptors such as Jacci Den Hartog, Keith Edmier,
Michael Pierzynski, and Alyson Shotz blatantly reveal contemporary
nature’s artificiality by borrowing from popular culture
and theme-park kitsch. A sound piece by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle
imitates the soothing recorded sounds of nature piped into shopping
malls and played at home for relaxation. Several of the artists
are from the West Coast, imparting a Hollywood sensibility to
a theme that has occupied many artists in the past couple of years.
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated
72-page catalogue with a text by Mary-Kay Lombino and a short
story by Philip
K. Dick.
Guest curator Mary-Kay Lombino
is the curator of exhibitions at the University Art Museum, California
State University at Long Beach.
