Sticky: Like a Summer Night
as the peel falls away. Trickles down, honeysuckle dew.The flowers wave in the darkness infecting the air with a
sweet aroma. A strong sense ventilating the open laughing
mouth. Nectar Eucalyptus. It dries quickly in the piercing sun.
The drop of juice leaves a streak down the arm, the dust
adheres in a muddy trace.
The skin accumulates residue of hot lake waters, human
sweat mingles in that humid air. Water splashing, mosquitos
oat like approaching storm clouds. Surrounded by dripping
fructose – an acid rain that covers every surface in sheer
vibrant glaze. Somewhere up the mountain, a volcano’s plume
slowly emitting sulphuric gas. The unmoving waters grow
algae and bioluminescent microbes spitting on the rocks,
jumping in the rain. The sun goes down on the red lake
leaving echoes of colour sitting on moist eyes.
Snakes slither through the soft earth and the mud gives way.
Clothing moist and covered in clay. Running around that thick
red puddle, setting sun, silt. Getting dizzy, falling down on its
squishy banks. Wet earth seeps in through strands of hair,
trembling fingers, sliding hands. Floppy little houses.
Salt and Iron. Woods that grow.
photography, lm, and installation. Her work often incorporates notions of
choreography and performative gesture with sculptural objects in bodily milieus.
The photographs create the notion of a heightened sensorial awareness and the
metaphysical slide between human bodies and a community of inanimate objects.
For Sticky, three new photographs will be presented in Berlin for the first time
that illustrate materiality of human skin in brief, intimately framed encounters.
Recently she has exhibited at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal; Tropez, Berlin; Casino Luxembourg; Blue Star Contemporary,
Texas; Darling Foundary, Montreal; and LA BF15, Lyon.
Nicholas William Johnson (b.1982, Honolulu, Hawaii) is a painter who studies
the recent science of plant consciousness and its connection with shamanic
knowledge and mythology. The curvatures of drooping fruits heavy with nectars
give the jungle a lush eshy materiality to vegetal glaze. His recent canvases are
composed of unusual palettes that indicate towards altered states of consciousness
or brief moments of solstice hues, but retain a mossy textural lichen materiality of a fungal organism on the forest floor. Recently he has exhibited at Plus-One,
Antwerp; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Peter von Kant, London; Montoro 12,
Rome; and Podium, Oslo.
Martin Llavaneras (b. 1983, El Segrià, Spain) works with sculpture and
installation to relate to the divisions between human beings and their environment.
Fruit Belt is an ongoing sculptural series that approaches the biological and
metabolic process of creating fructose. The caramelized sugar that he drips over
leaves and fruits will continue to drip during the summer months of the exhibition
onto aluminium plates made from the casts of trampled leaves on industrial fruit
farms. Previously, he has worked with micro-environments that are created for the
ideal conditions for the ripening of fruit. Recently he has exhibited at Sala de Arte
Joven, Madrid; Bombon Projects, Barcelona; La Panera, Lleida; and the Fundació
Joan Miró, Barcelona; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux; and Centre del Carme
Cultura Contemporànea, Valencia.
Lucía Pizzani (b. 1975, Caracas, Venezuela) works with photography, sculpture,
and video on the intersection between feminism and botany. Her ceramic works
often illustrate the idea that the periphery and delineation of the human body is
within nature through the processes of creating the work. Ceramic sculptures from
the series Capullo, made of thin clay, are often pressed against textile or skin to
create textures that deviate the drips of glazes. They appear like small cocoons
which are complemented by the photographic series Impronta in which characters
wear fabrics and impersonate a morphing butter y. Recently she has exhibited and collaborated with Fundación Marso, Mexico City; The Photographer’s Gallery,
London; and Cecilia Brunson Projects, London.
Juana Subercaseaux (b. 1986, Santiago, Chile) is a painter who creates
landscapes that incorporate the indeterminate and constructed dimension of
nature. Rather than presenting a romantic and idealised view of nature she focuses
on the human relationship with the environment based more on fear, survival, and
the threat of death that comes from the unknown. Her night scenes and moments
of sparks of light capture something of a hidden and occult knowledge that
transfixes the imagination with curiosity as well as reserve. Recently she has
exhibited at Espacio Andrea Brunson, Santiago; Edificio Alonso, Santiago;
13 Jardines, Requínoa; Casa Gris, Santiago; The Intuitave Machine, Santiago; and Estudios del Formato, Valdivia.
Àngels Miralda (b. 1990, Princeton, New Jersey) is a Catalan-American curator
working with themes of neo-materialism and mineral consciousness as well as
imagining the artist’s studio as a microcosm for global industry. In 2017 she
curated an exhibition in an artist’s studio on Juliusstraße in Berlin titled “Squishy:
Eels Swim in Snakey.” Following the format of title and works, this exhibition is
about curating as a feeling that sometimes cannot be described. Occult mysticism
and contemporary concerns foreground the exhibition which is about the changing
human relationship to nature during summer months as well as increasing global
melting. Recently she has curated exhibitions at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary
Art, Riga; Lítost, Prague; Bombon Projects, Barcelona; Horse and Pony Fine Arts,
Berlin; Podium, Oslo; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago de Chile.