To reflect on the destiny of humanity, Angelika Markul’s work combines the forces of nature with the upheavals caused by the actions of mankind. Her video installations and sculptures lead us through natural and industrial disasters, such as the radioactively contaminated “exclusion zone” in Chernobyl, the Martian landscape of the Atacama Desert in Chile or tsunami-ravaged Fukushima. In these places, she finds manifestations of forces of unknown origin or liberated by human error. In her works, Markul shows how these forces interact with our world, usually with devastating power.
Angelika Markul, A Throat of The Devil, 2013, photo. Bartosz Górka, courtesy of artist/ The Art Museum in Łódź (Poland)
I reconstruct a memory by associating actual remembrances with other images, which I encounter and film, – explains the artist. - My relationship to memory stems from my obsession with death and with my own history.
For her first major solo exhibition in France, Angelika Markul is presenting a body of recent work – in some cases for the first time. Terre de départ (Land of Departure) - the title of this exhibition- refers to a belief held by Native Americans in Chile that man is only temporarily a transit zone or a simple starting point, before heading towards the stars.
Angelika Markul, shot action from Bambi in Chernobyl, 2013, photo. courtesy of the Leto Gallery
The exhibition will also include, among others, the installation titled Bambi in Chernobyl, which was awarded the Prix SAM 2012. This work was based on the footage of the artist’s expedition to the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power station.
The exhibition is a part of L’État du ciel series, ongoing from 14th February to 7th September, 2014 at the Parisian Palais de Tokyo.
The partners of the display are: SAM Art Projects, Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques, the Polish Institute in Paris, the Museum of Art in Łódź, Eva Albarran & co.
Angelika Markul "Terre de départ (Land of Departure)"
Palais de Tokyo
Paris
14.02 – 12.08.2014
Curator: Daria de Beauvais
Sources: Palais de Tokyo, The Polish Institute in Paris, The Art Museum in Łódź, Leto Gallery, own materials, ed. AS, 11.02.2014, translated: Katarzyna Maksimiuk, 13.02.2014