CatharineClarkGallery

For the first time in this series, Birk draws upon documents from across eras and continents to portray a subject which affects countries and populations spanning the globe: the laws which govern the seas.  The lighthouse in the drawing portrays the 200 word Preamble from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS).  This document represents more than fourteen years of work and the cooperation of over 150 countries from all regions of the world, representing every political and legal system, and the spectrum of socioeconomic development.  UNCLOS defines the rights and responsibilities of nations with respect to their use of the world's oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management of marine natural resources.  The Convention, completed and opened for signature in 1982, replaced four 1958 treaties, and basically solidified long held, customary views of the uses of the sea.  UNCLOS entered into force in 1994, a year after Guyana became the 60th nation to sign the treaty.  Although the United States now recognizes UNCLOS as a codification of customary international law, it has yet to ratify it. 

Fittingly, the base of the lighthouse draws from two historically important texts which, to this day, form the basis for the creation and interpretation of international and maritime law.  The first text dating to the 17th century is by Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius.  Grotius's 1604 treatise, De Jure Praedae Commentarius (Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty) promoted the right of unobstructed navigation, and remains to this day one of the classic texts influencing the rule of law on the high seas.  Grotius’s book on international legal doctrine, Mare Liberum (1609) is generally recognized as a paramount element in the formulation and interpretation of contemporary international law.  The base of the lighthouse structure also contains a quote from President Woodrow Wilson’s speech “The Fourteen Points” given to the United States Congress in 1918, towards the end of World War I.  In it, he mentions (as point 2) that the seas must be free to all nations.  The “Fourteen Points” speech was the only explicit statement of war aims by any of the nations fighting in World War I, and eventually became the basis for the terms for Germany’s surrender at the end of the war. 

Fallen Water explores questions about why humans are drawn to waterfalls and flowing water as a source for renewal.  Waterfalls imbue subconscious associations with pristine and healthy drinking water, but what happens when when the fountain can no longer renew itself? Is the water is no longer pure?  Cooley’s choice of subject matter strikes a deep chord with current social consciousness and anxieties about contemporary water usage and the drought crisis faced by the American West.  Cooley references Blake’s famous quote from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell as context for the diametric opposites of the current water conundrum:  our deep sense of entitlement to and dire dependence on this precious commodity, coupled with a pervasive obliviousness concerning the sources which supply it.  As a way to connect with his personal water use, Cooley hiked into the mountains to see firsthand the snowpack (or lack thereof), streams, and aquifers which feed the water sources supplying his Los Angeles home.  This installation is an amalgamation of videos made over numerous trips to remote locations in The San Gabriel Mountains, The Sierra Nevada Mountains, and locales as far away as The San Juan Mountains in Southwestern Colorado.

Fallen Water explores questions about why humans are drawn to waterfalls and flowing water as a source for renewal.  Waterfalls imbue subconscious associations with pristine and healthy drinking water, but what happens when when the fountain can no longer renew itself? Is the water is no longer pure?  Cooley’s choice of subject matter strikes a deep chord with current social consciousness and anxieties about contemporary water usage and the drought crisis faced by the American West.  Cooley references Blake’s famous quote from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell as context for the diametric opposites of the current water conundrum:  our deep sense of entitlement to and dire dependence on this precious commodity, coupled with a pervasive obliviousness concerning the sources which supply it.  As a way to connect with his personal water use, Cooley hiked into the mountains to see firsthand the snowpack (or lack thereof), streams, and aquifers which feed the water sources supplying his Los Angeles home.  This installation is an amalgamation of videos made over numerous trips to remote locations in The San Gabriel Mountains, The Sierra Nevada Mountains, and locales as far away as The San Juan Mountains in Southwestern Colorado.

Sun City (2013) focuses attention on the town of Benidorm, Spain.  Out of all the transformations that the package holiday industry has made to the Mediterranean over the past fifty years, Benidorm represents a sea change: from sleepy fishing village to mini-Manhattan.  This extraordinary transformation forms the basis for this work, though the premise behind Benidorm’s growth is dramatically warped.  Sheltered by the mighty Puig Campana Mountain, Benidorm benefits from an extraordinary sun-rich microclimate.  The fantasy described is that the sun, not humankind, is responsible for the growth of the metropolis.  Through photographic reconstruction and collage of past and present imagery, the video suggests that people have been worshiping the sun in Beniform for thousands of years.  Stop motion animation describes the growth of the buildings as if they evolved like plants, grown by the sun itself.  Finally, this living town is transformed into something far more valuable than a tourist destination: a machine for harnessing the sun.  Benidorm is the ultimate solar power station, where energy value trumps that of beauty or pleasure.

This video is an iteration of a 2015 public commission by Doyle at Wave Hill: A Public Garden and Cultural Center, in New York City.  His dramatic installation, The Lightening, a Project for Wave HIll's Aquatic Garden, was comissioned for Wave Hill's 50th Anniversary.  

Chris Doyle's videos explore the way that human anxieties and collective attitudes about the environment are projected through representations of landscape.

Bright Canyon debuted in summer 2014 across huge screens in Times Square in New York City.  For three minutes before midnight througout the month of July, the Square's colossal dizziness transformed into woodland scenes inspired by the Palisade Cliffs flanking the Hudson River.  Doyle's installation was part of the 2014 Times Square's Midnight Moment series.

Mystic Shark was shot in a hotel room in Mystic, CT, using a box of petrified teeth bought at the Mystic Seaport Museums gift shop. Mystic Shark tries to elicit sympathy through the awkward and sentimental anthropomorphism of this much-feared and almost mythically vicious creature. What is shown here might be a "behind the scenes" moment where the tough guy shark gets ready to do his job (maybe he works at the aquarium being a shark in a tank, but lives in a hotel down the road). He's a bit past his prime, but he is trying to live up to our expectations. In the end, he tries to look endearing, and implores us silently to just try to love him a little bit.

On the morning of September 21, 2014, LigoranoReese installed a 3,000-pound ice sculpture of the words THE FUTURE at the intersection of Broadway and 23rd Streets at Flat Iron North Plaza in New York City. This public art work coincided with the U.N. Climate Summit and the People's Climate March--underscoring the necessity for immediate action to confront global warming.  The ice sculpture, which originally measured 21 feet wide and 5 feet tall, eventually melted away. During this process, LigoranoReese photographed and filmed the installation’s disappearance, posting it on the internet in real-time. The event combined many forms: sculpture, installation, performance, and internet media event.  Dawn of the Anthropocene was so named to describe the effect of humanity on the Earth’s systems. The term comes from Nobel prize scientist Paul Crutzen.  In his and other scientists’ view, humanity has entered an age when the power and impact of humans is as great, if not greater, than nature’s.