WP_20140508_052
WP_20140508_052

Swoon: Submerged Motherlands

By: aung.robo

Entering the Brooklyn Museum one is dazzled by the modern  architectural renovations seated sweetly inside the classically built structure. I solely went to see Ai Weiwei, absolutely. “Start at the 5th floor and then work your way down,” the usher said. Of course. I walked to the elevator and began to ascend. Exiting, I was greeted by a massive project, an installation and paper based world sitting in the center of the rotunda. I paused. Suddenly everything was wiped from my memory as I stood before, “Submerged Motherlands,” the latest 60 foot installation from Brooklyn based street artist Swoon.

I didn’t know it was her work at the time. I was fascinated by it and I started to scale the work. One is invited to be careful as the exhibit casts a wide net of materials over the floor of the gallery. Swoon is best known for her luscious life-size woodblock prints that she creates in her studio and pastes up over industrial Manhattan and Brooklyn buildings – originally she was featured in “Our City Dreams” a documentary based in NYC and showcasing five artists and their various projects. Simply viewing any of Swoon’s work, one can recognize the humanity in her subjects. People. Young, old, different races and genders. Different contexts and more importantly, different buildings onto which these cutouts are applied.

This exhibit, focuses on the topic of climate change. Heavily inspired by Hurricane Sandy that wrought havoc on the Atlantic coast in 2012. Paralleled with this commentary was inspiration drawn from Doggerland, a small land mass between Great Britain and the European mainland that was perhaps submerged by the North Sea some 8,000 years ago.

As one walks around a magnificent tree that rises to the dome of the rotunda, it appears to be constructed of nylon strips, arranged in a vertical linear pattern. It ascends into branches that have white paper cutouts in curvilinear patterns. Insects, flowers, it’s all there. The shadows on the ceiling echoed around the white cutouts lend to an eerie landscape. Smaller cutouts extend from the ceiling hitched to various tree limbs and mock vines. Women breastfeeding, and holding children, smiling, arms holding back magnificient bursts of color constructed beneath them, looking up at the sky. These figures create a sense of peace within the catastrophe that can be nature. Evident in each are the linear quality to the artist’s work. From the large constructed cutouts to the figures and how they are rendered, to the placement of the tree limbs and their texture, we witness a well-rounded representation of Swoon’s artistic capabilities.

Then there is the abundance of material possessions scattered around. Stacked and looking like a scene from a beach bum town of the past, well worn, weathered and used. Perhaps abandoned. Then re-inhabited. Stacked precariously on some sides, it is a reminder what happens to our possessions when the water recedes. Order is chaos. Familiar, unfamiliar. Displaced a new placement. Swept up in this beauty is the sense of longing, and quiet, and the realization that climate change is active.

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