ASHLEY BICKERTON
In the central space are two wall sculptures and a floor piece. At first glance the wall pieces, with their stacked-shelf arrangement of oddly assorted materials–organic, industrial, and “affluent” materials associated with leisure–are rather confounding. Wetlandscape #2 is composed of three tiered shelves supported by wire and pulley rigging. The bottom shelf is actually a length of red canvas whose edges are lashed to a black metal frame by white rope. Despite the pile of dried seaweed it holds, this bottom shelf so resembles a hammock or trampoline that you’re tempted to scramble aboard. The middle and top shelves are shallow glass and steel cases; the middle holds sand, and the top, small rose-colored rocks. On the front of these cases, in white lettering, are the names of obscure places like Puukukui Mountain and Ngorongora Crater Reserve. The entire piece is crowned by a rolled-up black leather mat.
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The other piece in this room, Wild Gene Pool #2, is a strange and wonderfully imaginative work straight out of a Jules Verne story. It is a large, almost square case made of aluminum colored black by chemical coating. This coating gives the case an expensive and authoritative look that only industrial-strength budgets can usually afford. The front sports 16 round glass windows. Inside each of these portholes is a small pile of seed; the plant type is identified on the outside just below each window. Three black rubber-padded handgrips protrude from each of the case’s sides, and mountaineering rope winds and knots its way through the 12 handles. This odd case seems designed by or for a deep-sea culture whose gene pools, no longer wild, need to be protected but could become dangerously inbred. It can’t be an accident that this work has been paired with Anthroposphere #2, for together they tell a story of careless destruction and its effect on future generations.
