Geoffrey Farmer, Ashes Withyman A Dark Switch Yawning, Neptune Skeletons Thronging, Black Bucket Prolonging, World Turtle Longing, Sink Plug Wronging July 29–October 1, 2017
Artists Geoffrey Farmer and Ashes Withyman have paired up to develop a collaborative, site-specific installation for the Salzburger Kunstverein. Farmer, who represents Canada at the Venice Biennale this year, and Withyman, who is Salzburger Kunstverein summer artist in residence, have worked together to convert the main gallery into a large pond with various relating components, including coins taken from a turtle’s stomach, a cannon carried across the country by car, a lightbulb, a foggy morning and naturally, fountains.
The two artists are working from a number of references to hone their respective creative backgrounds in this unique collaboration: Cosmologies from different eras, medieval water-works, Japanese mythological sea creatures, the ancient Greek Lunar calendar, the erotics of fountainry, an actual turtle found in Thailand full of coins, an ancient cannon, as well as several personal narratives from the artists are all at play in this exhibition. The nature of this collage of ideas is purely associative and collaborative. Each associative reference is wed to the next in a generative and open manner, suggesting an ethics of form and of meaning. Here the process of the installation’s own making becomes the work in-itself. In their respective work, the artists share a deep interest in these many associative histories and references, and share also an interest in notions of the double, the void and infinity. As reflected in this fountain installation, they view history itself as the emptying and re-filling of meaning and phenomena, with sprouts of fertile excess emerging suddenly to interrupt darkness, if only briefly.
