Naturalia

It is hard to imagine now the sense of wonder and discovery that artists of centuries past felt when studying nature - for man was still on the edge of the world, discovering new species of plants and animals at a pace unlike almost any other in modern history.  Nature was as admired as it was feared, concurrently paradisiacal and dangerous, giving it both the sense of the exotic and of dark mystery.

It is in this spirit that earthly metaphors have been borrowed, stolen and created by artists and writers over the millennia.  In recent decades, interpreting nature or simply using nature to convey a theme or subject has been one of the most fascinating conceptual ways in which many renowned contemporary artists have positioned their work. Damien Hirst‘s Devastation, 2008, is comprised of tens of thousands of dead flies thickly layered on a canvas.  From afar, the painting is black and dense but upon closer inspection it glistens delicately, evoking both the inevitability and beauty of mortality. In every seed lies the gene of its own destruction—a consistent theme in Hirst’s work over the last twenty years, as well as for many artists in the exhibition.  Mat Collishaw’s The Venal Muse. Evergreen, 2012, and Mark Dion’s Stork, 2016, also explore the idea of decay and beauty as inexorably bound. Sam Taylor-Johnson’s seminal video installation Still Life, 2001, demonstrates the slow decay of a ripe basket of fruit into eternal dust.  Fred Tomaselli’s forboding nocturnal landscape from 1996, Esopus Creek Bug Drop, is an innovative advancement to a genre whose 17^th century originator, Otto Marseus van Schrieck, is as well represented in the exhibition.

The sense of wonder and the sublime in nature is captured by Walton Ford’s monumental Loss of the Lisbon Rhinoceros, 2008, juxtaposed here with Albrecht Dürer’s famous depiction of the very same exotic animal, both inspired by the story of the animal’s tragic 15^th century voyage to Rome. With these two critical images as launching points, we cannot help but reflect on the consequences of human interference in our delicate world. Works by Theodora Allen, Adam Fuss, Michael Joo and Sean Landers evoke the sublime and conjure the same fantastical anthropomorphic narratives as the 17^th century Dutch painter Matthias Withoos’ extraordinary Landscape with Birds and Flowers in the Underbrush of a Wood, 1660.

Themes of precise scientific observation are examined in various early gouaches presenting minutely detailed renderings of individual animals and plant species. Among these is a rare and important pair of 16^th century works on vellum by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues; A Thistle and a Caterpillar and A Linnet on a Spray of Barberry. These evoke the same exquisite preciousness as Rachel Feinstein’s’ eroticized Goldfinger, 2012.

Contemporary artists in the exhibition include Theodora Allen, Louise Bourgeois, Mat Collishaw, Mark Dion, Keith Edmier, Rachel Feinstein, Walton Ford, Adam Fuss, Rafael Gomezbarros, Damien Hirst, Henry Hudson, Patrick Jacobs, Michael Joo, Sean Landers, Liu Dan, Polly Morgan, Roxy Paine, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Fred Tomaselli, Alexis Rockman, Mark Ryden and Jennifer Steinkamp.