Contemplating Apocalypse
Contemplating Apocalypse was an exhibition at the Brewery Project in the Fall of 2006 that I participated in as an Artist Organizer. It’s one of the projects I’ve been most pleased with, and I’m hoping to get the chance to re-visit some of the themes and work from the exhibition in future projects.
Artists: Edith Abeyta, Marshall Astor, Sue Bamford, John Michael Gill, Alex Lilly, Adrian de la Pena, Allyson Shaw, Porous Walker, Meeson Pae Yang
Artist Organizer: Marshall Astor
Dates: September 9 - October 15, 2006
Organizer’s Statement
I have always been drawn to the Apocalypse - my roots are in the mushroom cloud.
This project gathers together nine artists who will each address the concept of the
Apocalypse in their own personal ways.
Defining the Apocalypse - Apocalypse is a series of actions, not simply the wholesale
destruction or collapse of a system. It is also the “unveiling” that occurs during andlor
after that destruction. Through Apocalyptic events, the boundaries of our reality are
torn down and new truths emerge.
Artist Biographies
Edith Abetya – is an artist with one foot in the world of installation art
and the other in the realm of traditional crafts. She will be building a
post-apocalyptic domicile of found materials, industrial products and
garbage for gallery visitors to temporarily inhabit. In this project she
will be assisted by London clothing designers Sue Bamford and Allyson Shaw
who will be creating clothing for the imaginary resident(s) of the house.
Marshall Astor – is a conceptual artist and curator. His works are based
on his own personal fixations and fantasies about things that “should
happen” or that “need to be made.” For this project he will be
constructing an installation environment that simultaneously references
contemporary post-apocalypse narratives and art history, while indulging
his own post-apocalyptic fantasies.
Sue Bamford - Sue Bamford is London based textile artist and designer
reinventing historical garment construction with reclaimed materials. She
will be contributing garments and objects to Edith Abeyta’s installation.
John Michael Gill – is a painter and ceramist; his work often touches on
religious or biblical subjects. He will be addressing and depicting the
Christian Book of Revelations apocalypse through a series of paintings and
objects.
Alex Lilly – is a Portland, Oregon based activist and artist. Alex has
been painting large un-stretched canvases of American military vehicles in
Iraq on fire or in the process of their destruction since 2005, several of
which will be in the exhibition.
Adrian de la Pena – is the creator/author of a personal science fiction
narrative called Netsuke, which contains several apocalyptic themes. His
body of work consists of artifacts relevant to that narrative which he
will be constructing an environment of and for in this project.
Allyson Shaw – is a novelist, poet and knitter from Los Angeles, currently
living in London. She will be contributing clothing and objects to Edith
Abeyta’s installation.
Porous Walker – is a Napa, California based cartoonist and sculptor. His
projects use everyday objects in humorous contexts to point out the simple
absurdity of many of our commonly held beliefs.
Meeson Pae Yang – is a sculptor and installation artist. Her body of work
references the human body and the systems that it contains. For this
project she will be constructing an installation that addresses the
personal apocalypse that pushed her into art making.
Artist Statements
In keeping with the long standing tradition of Los Angeles artists inserting
“shacks” into galleries referencing props or sets from the film industry and
holding fast to the romantic vision of the eighties where nuclear fallout and war
leads to a modern primitivist nomadic lifestyle of scrounging, re-purposing, and
overall ingenuity in a world where packs of wild dogs roam and military surplus
equipment is scattered throughout the desert landscape, combined with the
critique of excess and waste that are by-products of capitalism’s inexhaustible
production of desires, and because of one’s inability to retrieve heavy objects,
we are left to collecting a minute amount of the one trillion plastic bags that
are produced worldwide each year and an infinitesimal portion of the 221
billion pounds of paper consumed annually in the United States that litters our
streets, fills our homes, landfills, and seas, the unromantic scraps that can’t
be turned into a fire breathing Survival Research Laboratory robot, but, really,
this is more of 19th century vision, about the return of the long extinct caped
and corseted rag picker sifting through trash piles, fashioning a life of scraps.
- Edith Abeyta with Sue Bamstead and Allyson Shaw, Hollywood Sci-fi Garbage Heap
I have been obsessing, fantasising and dreaming about the Apocalypse, or more
specifically, the Post-Apocalypse, since I was a very small child. Living under the
mushroom shaped umbrella of the tail end of the Cold War, I have always considered
a series of apocalyptic events leading to the destruction of human civilisation as
inevitable during my lifetime. I would lie awake in bed, imagining myself thriving in
the ruins of Western Civilisation. To me, the apocalypse has always represented an
opportunity to re-order the world around me, where I could carve out a sense of place
and identity from the weakened underbelly of a ruined society.
My project, “Apocalypse as Opportunity”, is a constructed environment in which I
will take on my dreamed of role as a Post-Apocalyptic warrior king. I intend this
piece to function as a statement of my faith that the order of privilege and meaning
in the world can be re-ordered by the powerless when the opportunity presents itself.
- Marshall Astor, Apocalypse as Opportunity
Having grown up in a half Catholic family, attending Catholic school from kindergarten
to 4th grade, I was always surrounded by stories of the bible. Most influential were
the statues and imagery of these dramatic scenes. These idols were very powerful
and as I have become more aware of my own sense of spirituality I have been forced
to question all that was taught to me. In an effort to understand religion from a
storyteller’s point of view I have been illustrating the bible for close to a year now,
my version, my interpretation.
For this exhibition, I will be focusing on this angle of my upbringing by creating
further imagery for my illustrated Bible, specifically the Book of Revelations, which
is an exciting subject because it contains so much beautiful violent imagery. It is a
storyteller’s wet dream that continues to be a huge influence and reference today.
-John Michael Gill, The Book of Revelations
THE RULING CLASSES OF THE WORLD PROP UP RELIGIOUS EXTREMISTS. RELIGION FUELS WARS FOR
LANDS BELIEVED TO BE SACRED OR now BUT RATHER ARE PLACES THAT CAN BE STRATEGICALLY
USED TO GAIN MORE WEALTH. THE PEOPLE THAT MORE OFTEN SUFFER OR ARE DISPLACED ARE THE
WORLD’S POOR. THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE POOR AND OPPRESSED MAKE NO DIFFERENCE TO THE
ELITE. IF THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE WAY OF ECONOMIC GAIN THEY WILL BE SACRIFICED OR REMOVED.
THE RELIGIOUS RICH USE MUCH MORE OF THE WORLD’S RESOURCES THEN THE MULTITUDES OF POOR.
AS WE ALL SEE IN GLOBAL POLITICS TODAY IT IS THE RICH COUNTRIES THAT USE RESOURCES FASTER
WlTH LESS POPULATION THEN THE MORE POPULOUS POORER COUNTRIES.
PERHAPS ALL PEOPLE WOULD USE UP AND DESTROY OUR WORLD IF GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY, BUT IT
IS THOSE FEW IN POWER THAT FEED THEIR BASE BY CONTINUOUSLY STATING THAT IT IS THEIR GOD
GIVEN RIGHT TO DRIVE S.U.V.S, POLLUTE, OR USE RELIGIOUS RACISM TO BOLSTER THEMSELVES.
GOVERNMENTS USE RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM TO FURTHER THIER AGENDAS. RELIGION AND APOCALYPSE
ARE A CLOAK TO HIDE THE FACT THAT THOSE IN POWER WILL GO TO ANY EXTREME TO SECURE THE
BEST LAND WITH THE MOST WEALTH FOR THEMSELVES. THESE RICH ELITE WILL USE RELIGION TO
CLEANSE THE LAND OF THOSE IN THEIR WAY. “CLEANSING” THE NICE WORD FOR GENOCIDE. “GENOCIDE” A GOOD WORD TO USE FOR APOCALYPSE.
WILL ANY OF US EVER BE SAFE FROM THOSE IN POWER? WILL ANY OF US EVER BE SAFE FROM RELIGIOUS EXTREMISTS? IT IS ALWAYS THE POOR THAT SUFFER AND ARE KILLED OR DISPLACED BY WAR.
RELIGIOUS WAR, WAR ITSELF WILL ALWAYS CREATE HELL ON EARTH. EXTREMISOGYNISTS, PATRIARCHY,
EVERY ONE TRAMPLES ON WOMENS RIGHTS, U.S. SOLDIERS RAPE AND MURDER FAMILIES IN THE NIGHT.
SECTARIAN VIOLENCE WILL NEVER END. IT SEEMS THAT EVERYONE IS CLAIMING HIS OR HER GOD GIVEN
RIGHT TO KILL EACH OTHER’S FAMILY. APOCALYPSE IS THE AGENDA OF THE RICH. DISPLACEMENT AND
DEATH ARE THE PROBLEMS OF THE POOR.
- ALEX LILLY, APOCALYPSE FOR THE RICH
Porous Walker is one of those kind of people. Living in Northern California for the last 8 years,he has learned to bathe on a regular basis.
The Apocalypse to me happens all of the time,I am not smart enough too explain it, but I believe all humanity here on earth go through many apocalypses throughout our lives, god is ruling.
- Porous Walker
DsurL is a man living in the Mexican desert between 93 and 197 years in the future. He is the first SprA, that is, the first person to express the Unifying Theory/Practice, as such. To the outsider the SprA are best described as master technician/magicians. For the most part, though, their existence is not known.
In the future, In order to advert total world destruction reality is quartered, so that in only one quarter the world is destroyed. DsurL Is the orchestrator of the quartering. The multiplying of universes requires the effort of every living being on the planet. DsurL and the Spra The RobotSavior and the Saints. The Detective. Akio and his gang of criminals with Diego. They are especially critical to the quartering. The event also requires the assistance of beings from other dimensions and other times.
DsurL and the SprA have identified key aspects that are needed for the Quartering. Some of these are events, gestures, mind .eta and moods. The other key aspects are, physical keys, tools and machines.
DsurL contacted me and other people living In the Harbor Area of Los Angeles one evening In 1994. I do not know who the other people are or if they have responded to him. During his contact with me he told me about the important task he had to do and he asked if i would work with him. My response was, I will do what is necessary and beautiful. He asked if i would write a story that would save the world.
The work I have been making since 2001 are pieces that DsurL has asked me to make. They are pieces needed to perform the Quartering. In 2003 DsurL asked me to build him a series of devices that will make it possible for him to visit our time and space. With these “time machines” he and other SprA wlll be able to come here. They will also allow him to transport my work to his time with, as best I can understand, a copy/paste technique developed by the SprA, TDK.
A nice meal for Yamauba, is a time travel device for DsurL and the SprA, Yamauba. Yamauba is the second SprA and one of the great designers of the 22nd century. DsurL has invited Yamauba here to become acquainted with my work, and to make adjustments to the TransDomAtic mainframe. A shared meal on this table will link the two SprA, enabling the double transport. As to the question of the Apocalypse, DsurL has submittad this rtatoment::
The Apocalypse Is now and has always been.
- Adrian de la Pena, A Nice Meal for Yamauba
We are curious beings. The mystery of what the end will hold, branches into a web
of interpretations, theories, and beliefs. For some, a prophetic belief system gives
meaning and order to the human experience. Like any story there is a beginning and
an end. At the root of the matter, is a utopian belief system, which resonates with
the human need to hope and believe that there is a life better than the one we are
experiencing today - to find peace of mind.
“Entity,” is an ethereal and layered multimedia installation addressing an intimate
dream of a new otherworld, a new Eden. The work is composed of wall and floor
pieces that create a meditative space to lull the mind into a fantastical dreamscape
full of cryptic imagery and meaning. The walls become an undulating form with
projections of water and cellular imagery upon layers of plastic film in shapes that
could represent leaves, boats, or feathers. On the floor are repeating incubator-like
forms, creating a larger functioning unit. And at the center of the incubators is a
precious centerpiece, a growth, representing the beginning of the end.
The afterlife is contemplated with mysterious biomechanical forms, strange
creatures, and inventive landmasses for the construction of substances organic
and mechanical, real and dream.
- Meeson Pae Yang, Entity
Images & Media
Images from Contemplating Apocalypse are in two separate Flickr sets.
General Images From the Installation and Reception
The artist statements from the show were available as a poster/catalog. Feel free to reproduce or mutate these as you see fit.
