opis

Na drewnianym podłożu napis białą majuskułą na czarnym tle: "God the monkey and" na drugiej tablicy "The people". Tablica pierwsza podzielona na wie części składane ze sobą poczas instalacji pracy. Tablice zawieszane jedna pod drugą. W tle (na ścianie na której zawieszany jest napis) rysunek przestawiający głowę małpy, czarną farbą na białym tle. Wyższy napis przebiega na wysokości oczu małpy. OPIS OD ARTYSTY: I have been working with primate images for a long time, this was one of the early sculptures. Primates have been interesting for their references to genealogy, history and nature as well as their close proximity to human beings in the so called “chain of being” the idea of evolution. In this work GOD the MONKEY and the PEOPLE, the drawing of the chimpanzee is taken from an illustration of an engraving that I have re-drawn and enlarged, not sure of the origin but it has a Victorian feel to it. It is an open source image non copyrighted from a group of illustrations the seem to be Victorian in origin, so I don’t know the actual reference. The structure of the text on the wall covers the eyes of the chimpanzee in a reference to the popular proverb, “Three wise monkeys” See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil from the 17th c. Here covering the eyes in the work refers to the closing down of perception or blocking perception. It used to be that “seeing is believing” was a way to verify truth in the world. The idea of god, monkey and people, in that order suggests a different way of aligning ideas about being human and our relationship to nature. This work I suppose ultimately is a critique of belief systems when compared to rational arguments about the world. Thinking about this work today I would say “belief has no reason” particularly against the backdrop of catastrophic consequences of human intervention we witness in the world today, that we are now beginning to comprehend and identify as the age of the Anthropocene. I am also interested in the drawing as a kind of wall paper with three-dimensional objects that constitute the work as a sculpture. The immateriality of image and the physical presence of text is the tension that I appreciate in this work.