TAUBA AUERBACH: "Panthalassa"
STANDARD (OSLO)
PRESS RELEASE
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TAUBA AUERBACH
"PANTHALASSA"
16.10.2020-21.11.2020 / PREVIEW: FRIDAY 16.10.2020 / 18.00-21.00
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This show presents a series of painted world maps that keep oceans intact, center the Southern Hemisphere and cut along natural rather than arbitrary boundaries.
The paintings are accompanied by a group of highly processed infrared photos depicting currents of hot and cold water moving against each other.
For the last several years the artist has been painting in a mediated way - spraying, weaving or creating custom mechanical tools that remove or deposit paint. This time the tool is a piece of software, written for Auerbach by programmer Jason Davies. The tool allows the artist to make original projections, double worlds, and unusual rotations of the earth within its familiar frames.
Using these raw materials, Auerbach reconstructed a pair of innovative maps, originally hand-drawn by geophysicist, oceanographer and toy collector Athelstan Spilhaus between the 1940's and 1980's. These irregular-looking worlds are neighbored by two original maps that build on his techniques, in which Auerbach uses stereographic projection to frame all the world's oceans inside the shoreline of a single continent. North America and Europe are stretched around the peripheries.
As a counterpoint to these zoomed-out views of the earth in its entirety, there are two zoomed-in, focused looks at relevant sites, tunneling back in time - the gallery in Oslo and Tauba's studio in New York. A living, as-complete-as-possible timeline of the studio will be mounted in New York, as will a comprehensive set of maps for the gallery's location in Oslo.
The show is a study of place, point of view, and a field where geometry and politics intersect.
A set of affordable printed maps, published by Diagonal Press will be for sale at the gallery and online, and, along with a portion earnings from the show, will contribute to Critical Resistance, Welikia Project and Indigenous Environmental Network.
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Installation photography: Vegard Kleven
