E-Flux Press Release


A kinetic machine simulating snowing indoor in which pure white snowflakles descend and slowly change colour from white to black. At once strangely misplaced and intriguing, a subtile drama unfolds within the bittersweet beauty. It is with great pleasure that we present the work The Ashes of Snow, created specifically for Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art by the artist Carla Chan, who will be presenting her very first exhibition in Denmark.





 




















 





























International exhibitions

International Archives 1st half of 2017


Carla Chan, The Ashes of Snow

Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (Denmark)

16.06 - 13.08.2017


PrécédentSuivant

Français




Deutsch






Manipulated by temperature, the colour of the snow particles changes by means of thermocrome technology, a specialised type of ink that changes colour when subjected to heat. The minimalist expression refers to traditional Chinese ink painting, adding a poetic dimension to the work. The starting point for Chan’s practice is an extended fear of nature and its phenomena and ambiguities. Here, it is the phenomenon of snow that undergoes Chan’s artistic focus. Inspired by a photograph of a snowy mountaintop covered by black layers of carbon particles from a nearby factory, Chan developed her twisted, double-sided langage. What at first glance appears to be a spectacle of beauty is by closer look transformed into a scary reality. The otherwise contemplative snow landscape contains a discreet criticism and a concern for the future and for human’s impact on nature. In this way, the essence of Chan’s work is shaped by the awareness of climate change, as for instance the large amounts of chemical waste to whixh we expose nature, and it is exactly this destruction of the natural that is transferred to her aesthetic expression.


Chan herself comments on her practice  : «  Travelling feeds my creative juices. I’m especially obsessed with the Scandinavian winter lanscape and different oft-viewed nature areas that make me feel I am travelling to another planet. Those images are kept in my memory and eventually become my biggest source of inspiration.  »


Chan’s installations evoke on overwhelming, sublime experience of nature located between neality and illusion, figuration and abstraction. Chan’s installation are often accompanied by a soundtrack that originates from computer-processed information and emphasize the presence of technology as a filter for and approach to moving closer the nature. The relationships within depictions of nature, technology and the human are significant tropes in Chan’s practice and reveal urgencies in global contemporary art discourses.















 







Exhibition  16 June - 13 August 2017. Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Oslo Pl. 1, 2100 Copenhagen (Denmark). Tel. : +45 33 12 28 03. Hours: Tuesday – Friday: 12 – 18. Thursday: 12 – 21 - Saturday – Sunday: 12 – 18.


 









 





 



























 





 











Carla Chan, The Ashes- of Show . Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen

© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2017. All Rights Reserved