Dalziel + Scullion's investigation of mankind's relationship with the natural world continues in Aura A, their first exhibition at Houldsworth. As a precursor to a major exhibition at the gallery in October 2002, this new series of work will include a video monitor piece viewed alongside a group of four dual photographic prints on digital canvas.
Three of the four works in the series blend contemporary colour photographs of landscape with black and white archival images from the turn of the 20th century. The historic images mark a particularly brutal time in the history of mankind's relationship with landscape when wide sweeping and irreparable changes were made to the environment we now inhabit. Vast forests of trees were felled and whole populations of species were eradicated in the pursuit of progress, cultivation and civilisation.
In this exhibition the historic images of a mound of buffalo skulls, a Giant Redwood felled, and a domestic house made from the stump of a Great Cedar are seen adjoining contemporary images in contrastingly sharp focus compared to their grainy ancestors. Inevitable comparisons are made between the thousands of year's lifespan of an ancient blue glacier's movement and a giant Redwood's growth. Whilst these historic images represent just a few of those that documented this time, they bear a chilling resemblance to media images that emerged from recent global crises.
There is a curious sense of then and now to be gleaned from these poignant scenes, which present the serenity and apparent timelessness of nature beside the immediacy of mankind's efforts to control and develop the landscape. The sumptuous, luscious and almost tangible depth of dense forest, swathes of juniper, and opalescent glaciers are suggestive of a world before man's intrusion while the monochromatic images seem to herald the dawn of modernity and the commercialisation of nature.
The unique pairing of images in the series, however, leads the viewer to discover that the reality of this romantic perception of landscape is unfounded. Their impact reawakens the senses and provokes a reconsideration of the effects of history on contemporary life and our environment.
Dalziel + Scullion live and work in Scotland, and have recently been appointed as fellows at the National Museum of Film, Photography & Television, Bradford. Their work is held in collections throughout the UK and abroad including the Arts Council, the Science Museum and the V&A Museum. Their solo exhibition Home has just finished at Milton Keynes Gallery and will tour to Manchester Art Gallery in December. They have also shown at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, CCA Glasgow, CCA Melbourne, Sadler's Wells, London, the British Art Show 1990 at the Hayward and at the Venice Biennale in 1995. They will be also be exhibiting in Madison Square Park, New York in July of this year with Mark Dion and Dan Graham in a major new show addressing contemporary landscape.
