New York Artist Roxy Paine
START THE TRANSMISSION
The Sydney Biennale ended on 1 August 2010. Neuron by Roxy Paine has become almost the mascot of the event. A shortened version of this article appeared at Sydney Time Out.
There’s an astonishing artwork sitting down at Circular Quay. It’s like a piece of shiny tumbleweed blown in on a gust of wind - from the take-off thrusters of a spaceship maybe. As the Sydney Biennale comes to an end, Roxy Paine’s Neuron will leave its current site.
(Image: Installation view of the 17th Biennale of Sydney at the Museum of Contemporary Art © the artist) Photograph: Sebastian Kriete
It’s very large (nearly 11 metres high) and although tumbleweed pops into my head – it’s not very apt; as you get closer you notice long tentacle-like protrusions (dendrites I think – although I’m no expert on the nervous system). These stretch outwards and skywards while lower ones seem to have burrowed into the grass. This isn’t rolling anywhere without bits snapping off.
In simplistic terms this sculpture fits in exactly with what the Biennale hopes to achieve – Neuron is about communication and the exchange of ideas. It’s positioned at the MCA main entrance and it’s an amazing piece of construction.
Paine’s tree-like sculptures (which he calls Dendroids) are based on his research of real trees but Realism isn’t his aim. Industrial piping and rods mimic the language of trees but the joins are still visible. The Dendroids are only one facet of his art – which also includes art-making machines, and his Replicants: realistic plant and fungi creations. But all his art focuses on this central issue: what is natural and what is artificial?
We are drawn by Neuron’s size. The polished steel is incredibly beautiful and pulls us closer, like glinting jewellery in a shopfront. The symbol of the tree is rich in meaning – since Eve noticed the forbidden fruit looked succulent it’s taken on many connotations; religious and otherwise. The Dendroids individually have their own significance; Neuron’s branches fly out from its centre like cracks of current in a plasma globe – it’s part of a network (as in a tree chart) but the artist has brought his own personal experiences into a work previously. Conjoined was produced at a time he was experiencing conflict; maybe Neuron is indicative of a new cerebral period in which he is spreading his influence wider. He likes his sculpture to brim over with possible metaphor without taking us by the hand in one direction only.
He does desire a degree of tension – his first Dendroid stood in a natural forest and he dislikes how viewers might have idealized the scene. His sculptures are not site-specific but he prefers urban settings and the tensions created by man-made surroundings. Down at the quay there’s landscaping, 24 hour surveillance and fences around Neuron; the frozen explosion of polished metal glints in the sun. A few metres away the rolling flat ocean of Sydney Harbour is molten with its own reflected sunshine.
Paine is not demonizing the dawn of technology but wants his art to work as a catalyst for some serious thought. Neuron’s appearance is a bit sinister – cancerous and parasitic as well as space-age. Some branches twist back on themselves and snake into the soil. The brain and neurology are still areas that science doesn’t fully understand – the Biennale is about pushing boundaries but Paine might also darkly be making reference to mankind’s limitations.
I can’t help but think of trees in terms of carbon emissions. Trees have become the currency of environmental harm. Pollute, use resources and more trees will save the day. How incredibly ironic to build trees out of industrially-produced materials!
Just as Frankenstein created a man of sorts – the Dendroids are about transformation. Steel piping goes a certain way to mimicking an organic form. Other ingredients – electricity and loneliness – brought about Frankenstein’s monster. Paine’s metamorphoses also require external factors, specifically what’s in our minds as viewers and the physical setting. Rather than transforming completely over into something else – the Dendroids are becoming ever more like shape-shifters.
It’s more evident in recent works but they are multi-layered and function in different states simultaneously. Industrial materials become organic structures; Neuron is part of a network but with limitations; alluring yet sinister. The success of Mary Shelley’s monster lies in its complexity – and so the Dendroids fascinate as all these many layers co-exist.
END
Images courtesy of James Cohan Gallery, New York and with thanks to the The Sydney Biennale and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Art is the means by which life reflects on, transforms and indeed creates its values; human life without it would not properly be human at all.
Antony Gormley