In his 28 years, Julian Charrière has achieved more than most artists can hope to in a lifetime. Namely, winning Switzerland’s most prestigious art prize twice, presenting a major outdoor exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and creating work for the Venice Biennale (opens in new tab). Next up on the Swiss-born artist’s agenda is his first UK solo show at the Parasol Unit, ’For They That Sow the Wind’.
Based in Berlin, where he trained at Olafur Eliasson (opens in new tab)’s Institute of Spatial Experiments, Charrière’s work has seen him travel to some of the most remote corners of the planet to gather inspiration and materials for his poetic works, that explore themes of time, the continuous cycle of past, present and future, ecology and human intervention.
Take for instance his photographic series Blue Fossil Entropic Stories, where we find Charrière in the Arctic Ocean atop a vast iceberg where, for eight hours, he unsuccessfully tried to sculpt its surface with a blow torch. Or Tropisme, an ode to the Cretaceous period, where a collection of orchids and cactuses known to have existed during this geological period have been shock frozen in liquid nitrogen and sealed in a refrigerated sealed glass vitrine.
As well as these celebrated works, the show at Parasol Unit, curated by its founder/director Ziba Ardalan, is set to include some new site-specific pieces. Visitors to the exhibition can also enjoy a full-colour publication that includes two insightful essays, one by contemporary philosopher Timothy Morton and the other by Ardalan herself, along with an interview with the artist.
Included in the show are works such as We Are All Astronauts, in which a series of 13 world globes are strung up above a table and carefully sanded to eliminate their geopolitical contours and territories. The dust gathered below creates a new and undefined landscape of its own. Pictured: We Are All Astronauts, 2013
In the photographic series Blue Fossil Entropic Stories, we find Charrière in the Arctic Ocean atop a vast iceberg where, for eight hours, he unsuccessfully tried to sculpt its surface with a blow torch. Pictured: The Blue Fossil Entropic Stories (1), 2013
Tropisme is Charrière’s ode to the Cretaceous period, where a collection of orchids and cactuses known to have existed during this geological period have been shock frozen in liquid nitrogen and sealed in a refrigerated sealed glass vitrine. Pictured: Tropisme, 2015
In Somehow, They Never Stop Doing What They Always Did, structures made from small plaster, fructose and lactose bricks are moistened with water from major international rivers and displayed in glass cases. Over time, their surfaces begin to gradually decompose. Pictured: Somehow, They Never Stop Doing What They Always Did, 2013
Columns were made using a large configuration of thick salt bricks extracted from the Salar de Uyuni salt deposits in Bolivia, South America; a region now commonly referred to as the ’lithium triangle’. Pictured: Future Fossil Spaces, 2014
INFORMATION
’Julian Charrière: For They That Sow the Wind’ is on view from 15 January–23 March 2016. For more information visit Parasol Unit’s website (opens in new tab)
ADDRESS
Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art
14 Wharf Road
London, N1 7RW
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