Diving in the Decadent Ditch of Des Esseintes
curated by Marilla Palmer
Sept 7-22
opening reception Thursday September 6, 6-8pm
Victoria Calabro
Nancy Evans
Jacob Goble
Mary Jones
Yuliya Lanina
Shelley Marlow
Marilla Palmer
Patrick Van Maanen
Sam Wilson
"people of delicate sensibility exhausted by mental stimulation above all else"..."certain taste for things supernatural"..."spurious chastity and hypocritical modesty"..."penchant for artificiality and love of eccentricity"...."Nature has had her day; she has finally and utterly exhausted the patience of sensitive observers by the revolting uniformity of her landscapes and skyscapes" ..."no cascade that cannot be imitated to perfection by hydraulic engineering"...."complex contours devised by some demented draughtsman"......"diaphanous bladder of a pig"..."mad rites of magical ceremonies"....."delicious sorcery"......"delicious reverie"..."luxury will turn the boy to a murderer"..."excessively fond of flowers"....."inborn taste for the artificial...neglect real for the copy fashioned by the hands of the true artist"...."factitious skin covered with a network of counterfeit veins"..."vegetable ghouls and carnivorous plants"..."refreshing note of liquid green and pale gold"..."this floral extravaganza was quivering"..."beneath a firmament no longer lit by the beacon-fires of ancient hope!"
Excerpted from the "Against Nature" by Joris-Karl Huysmans, 1884
This exhibition was inspired by Fontenay, the residence of the fictional character Des Esseintes in the 1884 book "Against Nature" written by Joris Karl Huysmans .
All of the artists are unrepresented.
rm 308 526 West 26th Street New York, NY 10001 917 921 8342
http://divingintheditch.blogspot.com/
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Marilla Palmer in Fontenay
This exhibition was inspired by Fontenay, the fictitious residence of Des Esseintes in the book "Against Nature" written by Joris Karl Huysmans in 1884 .
When Sue Scott of One Eye Pug asked me to curate a show I immediately thought of this book and asked nine unrepresented artists if they would participate. When I emailed excerpts from the book to them I got some interesting reactions. (The excerpts and comments are below. ) Some were excited and said it really fit in with their thoughts on their work, and some of the artists were initially repelled until I told them how it ends. One artist withdrew because the book had had such a negative impact on a friend who became obsessed with it.
Reading Against Nature again after several decades. I found some surprising initial parallels to my life. At the death of his parents Des Esseintes inherited some money and did the obvious thing: he bought a house and started renovating. But Des Esseintes had an insanely meticulous attention to detail, each room was like a sculptural installation. For example the dining room gave the illusion of being in a ship at sea. The porthole windows were like thin aquariums. Mechanical fishes floated by occasionally getting caught in artificial seaweed . The room smelled like tar with lighting that minutely mimicked changes of weather and time, there were "random" assortments of fishing rods, nets and timetables all created by the finest artisans and state of the art technology.
My relationship with this book is complex. Against Nature is a revolting and fascinating book that has haunted me and my work for decades. I feel a very powerful connection to raw, unspoiled nature and my spiritual orientation is almost pagan. Des Esseintes says that he was "excessively fond of flowers", but in a perverted way. At first he preferred the artificial ones that were "better than real", and then real flowers that looked like decayed flesh, like "factitious skin covered with a network of counterfeit veins" or the "diaphanous bladder of a pig". He had a love/hate relationship with nature.
As our world becomes more toxic and virtual the artificial environment that Des Esseintes (Huysmans) created seems even more revolting. But as an artist I am enthralled by the descriptions of Des Esseintes Fontenay. For my assemblages and collages I pick up bits of nature(tree fungus, foliage and bark) to combine with artificial foliage, manufactured items and LEDS, sharing Des Esseintes need to make and live with a piece of sublime landscape.
Marilla Palmer, Aug 24, 2007
When Sue Scott of One Eye Pug asked me to curate a show I immediately thought of this book and asked nine unrepresented artists if they would participate. When I emailed excerpts from the book to them I got some interesting reactions. (The excerpts and comments are below. ) Some were excited and said it really fit in with their thoughts on their work, and some of the artists were initially repelled until I told them how it ends. One artist withdrew because the book had had such a negative impact on a friend who became obsessed with it.
Reading Against Nature again after several decades. I found some surprising initial parallels to my life. At the death of his parents Des Esseintes inherited some money and did the obvious thing: he bought a house and started renovating. But Des Esseintes had an insanely meticulous attention to detail, each room was like a sculptural installation. For example the dining room gave the illusion of being in a ship at sea. The porthole windows were like thin aquariums. Mechanical fishes floated by occasionally getting caught in artificial seaweed . The room smelled like tar with lighting that minutely mimicked changes of weather and time, there were "random" assortments of fishing rods, nets and timetables all created by the finest artisans and state of the art technology.
My relationship with this book is complex. Against Nature is a revolting and fascinating book that has haunted me and my work for decades. I feel a very powerful connection to raw, unspoiled nature and my spiritual orientation is almost pagan. Des Esseintes says that he was "excessively fond of flowers", but in a perverted way. At first he preferred the artificial ones that were "better than real", and then real flowers that looked like decayed flesh, like "factitious skin covered with a network of counterfeit veins" or the "diaphanous bladder of a pig". He had a love/hate relationship with nature.
As our world becomes more toxic and virtual the artificial environment that Des Esseintes (Huysmans) created seems even more revolting. But as an artist I am enthralled by the descriptions of Des Esseintes Fontenay. For my assemblages and collages I pick up bits of nature(tree fungus, foliage and bark) to combine with artificial foliage, manufactured items and LEDS, sharing Des Esseintes need to make and live with a piece of sublime landscape.
Marilla Palmer, Aug 24, 2007
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Shelley Marlow
I take photographs motivated by love, respect and longing for the natural and supernatural worlds. I create an artifice through the digital camera. As I photographed off the grid writer Bill Vollmann, he cried out, “I’ve been digitized!”
In the work, "PHOTOGRAPHING THE FAIRY REALM" The horror of war plus 2007’s new year’s eve’s hanging perpetrated by the U.S.’s unelected president, took the wind out of typically elaborate celebrations. I’d previously glittered up a pile of postcards from different eras and places around the globe for the holidays. I used these postcards as a backdrop in a diorama set to imply time and space travel for the toy representations of the fairy realm. I wanted to speak of the desire for escape through travel and yet the impossibility of escape. Impossibility because no matter where you go there you are with your awareness.
Pleasurable-good artifices from Huysman’s time that I like are: mechanical birds that sing, amusement parks, underwater breathing machines, elaborate opera sets, nun outfits worn by non-nuns.
Bad artifices-deception from today that I fear are: those that deny the existence of global warming and green house effects where humanity may be dropped off like impetigo scabs from the face of the earth.
Painterly and ecological concerns permeate my fiction writing and photography. As well, I am reinventing the narrative around romance and gender.
Shelley Marlow 2007
In the work, "PHOTOGRAPHING THE FAIRY REALM" The horror of war plus 2007’s new year’s eve’s hanging perpetrated by the U.S.’s unelected president, took the wind out of typically elaborate celebrations. I’d previously glittered up a pile of postcards from different eras and places around the globe for the holidays. I used these postcards as a backdrop in a diorama set to imply time and space travel for the toy representations of the fairy realm. I wanted to speak of the desire for escape through travel and yet the impossibility of escape. Impossibility because no matter where you go there you are with your awareness.
Pleasurable-good artifices from Huysman’s time that I like are: mechanical birds that sing, amusement parks, underwater breathing machines, elaborate opera sets, nun outfits worn by non-nuns.
Bad artifices-deception from today that I fear are: those that deny the existence of global warming and green house effects where humanity may be dropped off like impetigo scabs from the face of the earth.
Painterly and ecological concerns permeate my fiction writing and photography. As well, I am reinventing the narrative around romance and gender.
Shelley Marlow 2007
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