Conceptual and historical overlaps bring three disparate, but materially rich, practices together
DUST TO DUST is a three person show featuring Magdalena Abakanowicz, Phoebe Cummings and Robert Mapplethorpe that considers the relationship between the organic world and the condition of the human body. Exploring decay and renewal, each artist uses motifs and forms evocative of the fragility and vulnerability of nature, positioning cycles of life within the temporality of the natural world.
The exhibition will centre on Robert Mapplethorpe’s flower photographs; an installation by Phoebe Cummings made from raw clay; and Magdalena Abakanowicz’s signature sisal works. All three artists engage directly with the seemingly decorative tradition of flowers to ask much deeper and profound questions of our place in the world, and the fragility, tenderness and transience of life.
The human body is also implicit in the work of each artist. This blend of the organic and corporeal is clear in woven fibre works by Magdalena Abakanowicz (b.1930-2017). Probably best known for her Abakans – vast enveloping, womblike, seemingly timeless structures or figures that hang from the ceiling – Abakanowicz creates shroud-like forms that evoke a metamorphosis of some form of ambiguous organism; a brooding refuge to take shelter in or emerge from, imposing yet benevolent.
Phoebe Cummings (b.1981) makes time-based ceramic installations from unfired clay. Highlighting the fragility of the material while delving into themes of impermanence and decay, her work generally takes the form of botanical elements and is mostly site specific. The time-based nature of the work also has a performative quality: works are dissolved after the exhibition, or sometimes over the course of it, depending on the inherent fragility of the structure. Referencing the fragile relics of past and future histories, Cummings’ works frequently return themselves to dust.
Robert Mapplethorpe’s (b.1946-1989) flower photographs capture the fleeting and ephemeral. Increasingly made towards the end of his life, there is a beauty, temporality and fragility to these works that blurs the boundaries between the botanical and corporeal. The bodily parallels (flowers as organs) are evident and erotic, but the wilting forms also communicate a deep poignancy, reminiscent of the memento mori trope and the Baroque symbolism of Dutch still life painting in the seventeenth century.
By highlighting conceptual and historical overlaps, the exhibition brings these three disparate, but materially rich, practices together to encourage new contexts and threads of meaning to emerge. The exhibition will be accompanied by a commissioned text written by Hettie Judah.
Sid Motion Gallery, 24a Penarth Centre, Hatcham Road, SE15 1TR.
Dates: 21st September – 2nd November.
Times: Thursday – Saturday, 12 – 6pm or by appointment. Admission: Free.
Website: https://sidmotiongallery.co.uk/
