Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Spike Island, Bristol
27 February - 4 May
Reviewed by: Jennie Savage
'Nanoq:Flat Out and Bluesome' by artists Bryndis Snaebjornsdottir and Mark Wilson is a large-scale installation comprising ten taxidermy polar bears. Each bear has been borrowed from a UK museum, given a new plinth and been re-housed in a modern glass tank. Through this process the bears have been cleansed of their museum status, the framework for their being seen has literally been removed thus peeling away layers of cultural signification.
The removal of cultural reference points highlights the shifting sands of appropriation projected onto museum artefacts and addresses the ethical issues of looking in fascination at these creatures from the wild. The bears arrived to UK shores as trophies and would have been first exhibited as an awe-inspiring victory of man pitted against the elements. This position, however, could not withstand the cultural shifts that happened outside the museum, so the bears were given new labels to wear - like science or education - in order to give us cultural permission for their continued display. Removed from the theatre of the museum, the apparatus of interpretation and the science of taxonomy the bears float in a nowhere space. This new relationship is one based purely on looking and through this gaze the viewer has to re-evaluate his or her own position to the bears as a legacy.
Through re-installation Snaebjornsdottir and Wilson have erased a century of appropriation creating the space for a new dialogue to be expressed based on the history of the bears, the name of their hunter, the taxidermist and the nature of their museum bequest.
'Nanoq: Flat Out and Bluesome' transcends a century of social change and morality returning to the start of the story. In effect, history has come full circle making the story of the bears the subject thus re-uniting them with their quarry, the moment of capture and the author of their immortality. Through this process of return the museum becomes the museum, a place to be curious about the history of our cultural exhibition.
Writer detail:
Jennie Savage is an artist based in Cardiff.
jennie@jenniesavage.co.uk |
www.jenniesavage.co.uk
Venue detail:
Spike Island
133 Cumberland Road, Bristol BS1 6UX
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