Solastalgia by Stanislaw Trzebinski is a solo exhibition of sculptural furniture, lighting and two-dimensional artworks in bronze, timber, copper and glass at Southern Guild. This new collection tells the disquieting story of a dystopian natural world, reconstructing itself after climate devastation.
The featured body of functional sculpture and artwork explores a dark vision of nature’s continuation after the extinction of man. In the current state of climate alarm, Trzebinski expresses a grief for what has already been lost to man’s rapacious self-interest. “I’ve been experiencing what environmental philosopher and sustainability professor Glenn A. Albrecht calls solastalgia,” he explains, “a nostalgia for the loss of places that used to give me solace – that made me feel fully human. Our very home, the Earth, is being ruined, despoiled. So much is already lost, and I’m homesick in my own home.”
Trzebinski delves into the notion of impending ecological collapse, and it is here the exhibition’s creations unearth themselves, emerging from the scorched undergrowth. The artist’s forms speak to the possible metamorphosised creatures of this future terrain: acid-tolerant amoeba, burrowing cave dwellers, giant carnivorous mushrooms sheathed in fungal, porous skirts. The organisms have been borne of biological necessity, shedding their own layers of being and seizing only what is needed to survive.
A trio of standing lights seemingly unfurl from the earth, each of their bronze tendrils holding a hand-blown glass bulb, mottled in bacteria-like dispersions of green and blue. Trzebinski collaborated with specialist glass studio
Kitengela Glass in his native Kenya to make the unique handmade blubs. The exhibition features Trzebinski’s largest singular artwork to date, a 12-square-metre series of patinated copper panels etched with trails of Turing patterns that invite both microscopic and topographical associations. Another piece of sculptural furniture, a bronze coffee table, is laced with a textural intricacy inspired by Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression, known to be the hottest place on earth.
Kitengela Glass in his native Kenya to make the unique handmade blubs. The exhibition features Trzebinski’s largest singular artwork to date, a 12-square-metre series of patinated copper panels etched with trails of Turing patterns that invite both microscopic and topographical associations. Another piece of sculptural furniture, a bronze coffee table, is laced with a textural intricacy inspired by Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression, known to be the hottest place on earth.The otherworldly forms of each work tell the disquieting story of a dystopian natural world, reconstructing itself after climate devastation. As an exhibition, Solastalgia stands as a macabre step beyond the artist’s usual exploration of man’s symbiotic yet tenuous relationship with nature.
A prolific artist who is unafraid to work with new processes and materials, Trzebinski explored the use of three-dimensional printing to create the bronze moulds for a selection of the featured works. Combined with the age-old technique of lost-wax casting, this application is reflective of a unique convergence of past and present.
Solastalgia prods us to reflect that if we can find hope in our trepidation, all is not yet lost.
WHAT: Solastalgia by Stanislaw Trzebinski
WHERE: Southern Guild, Silo 5, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town 8001
WHEN: until 10 November 2022 | Mon-Fri: 9am – 5.30pm Sat: 10am – 2pm
INFO: T +27 21 461 2856 | E southernguild@theguildgroup.co.za | Visit | See also current exhibition Patrick Bongoy at Southern Guild on Sanlam Arts Round Up
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