MIST is the exhibition of new works by Marguerite Humeau on view at CLEARING, Brussels, till October 19.
“What if non-human beings are not just spectators ‒ witnessing the world’s slow motion destruction? What if they, too, mourn their dead, and weep for the extinction of other species? What if global warming is triggering the birth of spiritual feelings in non-human beings?
Humeau has heard tell of whales beaching themselves, embracing death by suffocation under their own body weight for no one else but themselves. Dolphins, too, committing mass suicide ‒ tired of the sea and life therein. Chimpanzees are piling up rocks ‒ apparently building some kind of temple. Reindeers are self-inducing magic mushrooms, reaching states of ecstatic trance. Elephants wave branches at the waxing moon…
While some of these behaviours seem to be ancient, their number and complexity have increased in recent years. Mass extinction seems to be making animals more conscious of their own mortality; making them hope for some form of existence after death… Clear distinctions between animal and man (indeed, between nature and culture) are blurring. MIST descends.
MIST envisions a world in which mass extinction has accelerated to a point of no return; where non-human beings have become spiritual, capable of self-transcendence and mystical experience, because they have no other choice. It is as if promethean punishment (the trauma of reason) were visited on them for humanity’s crimes in the pursuit of planetary mastery.”
Nadim Samman
Credits: Courtesy of the artist and CLEARING New York, Brussels. Photo by Eden Krsmanovic
MIST
05.09.2019 – 19.10.2019
Discover: www.c-l-e-a-r-i-n-g.com
