Dreams and nightmares, longing and anxiety, beauty and horror: OCEAN was the big Louisiana event of the season. A journey of discovery above and below the surface, where history and the present met in an intersection between art and science.
We know more about the surface of Mars than we do about the oceans that cover more than 70% of our own planet. But the more we dive below the surface, the more incredible things seem to emerge. And in the realm of our imagination, we are literally flooded with images, stories and fantastic creatures.
The New York Times
ADVENTURE & DESTRUCTION
We humans, like all other life, come from the sea, which we both fear and long for. In antiquity, the philosopher Plato wrote that "we live around the sea like ants or frogs around about a pond." But despite our own insignificant size, our influence can now be traced everywhere in the world's oceans.
Thus, the oceans are no longer just a reservoir for our collective imaginations of gods, monsters and fairy tales. To a large extent, they have become a gigantic junkyard and a resource that is being exploited to the max.
THREE THEMES
OCEAN was conceived as a large, thematic exhibition, where myths, history and the present merged. And where art, culture and science met. The exhibition took up the entire South Wing of the museum and consisted of three general themes: 1) The ocean between art and science, 2) The sublime and mythological ocean and 3) The anthropocene ocean.
INTO THE DEEP
The exhibition opened with an exploration of art and cultural objects that lie at the crossroads between aesthetics and science, e.g. in the form of Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes of seaweed, Emilija Škarnulytė’s art film from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, or Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka’s incredible glass models of marine invertebrates.
MYTHS AND EXPLOITATION
The sublime and mythological ocean (second theme) revolved around the emotions and ideas that arise in art when man is confronted with the unknown. From statues of ancient gods and heroes that have lain 2,000 years on the seabed in the so-called Antikythera shipwreck, to the sublime sea surface as depicted in e.g. Peder Balke, August Strindberg and Susan Hiller. From visions of strange monsters in Japanese woodcuts to mythologies around merpeople, descending from enslaved Africans in the works of Ellen Gallagher and El Anatsui.
In the exhibition’s final theme, the anthropocene ocean, ideas and notions of exploration and enchantment were replaced by accounts and interpretations of man’s exploitation of the oceans. Here, for example, the ocean as an intensely trafficated highway was depicted by Alan Sekula and Nina Beier and as a stage for the destruction of cultures and the environment by e.g. John Akomfrah and his video installation Vertigo Sea from 2015.
OCEAN brought together works by a series of acclaimed artists, both historical and contemporary: John Akomfrah, Anna Atkins, Peder Balke, Nina Beier, Jeanette Ehlers, Caspar David Friedrich, Ellen Gallagher, Susan Hiller, Pierre Huyghe, Kirsten Justesen, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Niceaunties, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jean Painlevé, Howardena Pindell, Pipilotti Rist, Allan Sekula, Emilija Škarnulytė, August Strindberg, Superflex, Wolfgang Tillmans, Yuyan Wang as well as Francesca Woodman…
The exhibition followed in the footsteps of a series of thematic Louisiana exhibitions such as The Arctic (2013) and The Moon (2018).
Sip my ocean
The large-scale video installation 'Sip My Ocean' from 1996 by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist was on view in the North Wing corridor as part of the exhibition. The work shows close-ups of both the human body and eyes, which are just below the surface of the sea, while the iconic pop song 'Wicked Game' by Chris Isaak is sung by Rist herself in a more desperate rendition. The work is part of the museum's collection.
This exhibition was endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development as a Decade Activity. For more information
Presentation of Emilija Škarnulytė’s work Aphotic Zone with support from:
