October 26, 2023
Julian Charriere
Buried Sunshine
Sean Kelly Los Angeles
September 14 - November 4, 2023
Julian Charriere
Julian Charrière is a Swiss-born, Berlin based artist whose work often focuses on nature, ecology and the changing climate. He was included in the Venice Biennial (2017) and was recently the subject of a solo show at the Dallas Museum of Art (2021). For his first Los Angeles exhibit, Buried Sunshine, Charrière was drawn to the subject of oil and researched the history and photographed the oil fields that dot the L.A. landscape. He has beautifully crafted a seductive, mixed media installation that includes the video projection Controlled Burn (2022) and a new series of heliographs titled Buried Sunshines Burn.
Controlled Burn is a 32 minute video that cycles through the sights and sounds of numerous implosions, flames and fireworks that fill the darkness of the night sky. Shot from above by drone, the footage documents ambiguous and deep quasi-military, yet now abandoned spaces including cooling towers, rocket silos and oil platforms that are surrounded by ricocheting projectiles. Amidst thunderous roars, viewers who look carefully may suddenly realize that what they are seeing is impossible and that Charrière is projecting the footage in reverse. This makes it even more bewildering.
Along the walls in the darkened gallery space are large-scale photographic images — heliographs. Scenes shot on location around Los Angeles' oil fields are imprinted on high-polished stainless steel with light sensitive emulsion that incorporates tar from the LaBrea, McKittrick and Carpinteria Tar Pits. Charrière traveled around the state to document local oil fields from above and presents them as subtle, reflective abstractions that need to be viewed in low light in order to see the nuances of the depictions. These heliographs, including the 86 inch tall Buried Sunshines Burn | 1Z.CXO (2023) hover between abstraction and representation, as well as art, history and science as Charrière takes into consideration Los Angeles' dependency on oil and the cities conflicting relationship to it, especially given the increasing environmental concerns.
As the title Buried Sunshine suggests, Charrière's images do not depict sun-filled skies and receding horizons or colorful sunsets. Rather, he is interested in how cities like Los Angeles appear from above and investigates how the intricacies of the natural and man-made worlds intermingle. The photographs, while amazingly beautiful and seductive, are about industrialization and the black fluids that travel beneath the earth's surface. Coupled with Controlled Burn, the exhibition serves as a warning of an imagined apocalypse to come.
Buried Sunshine
Sean Kelly Los Angeles
September 14 - November 4, 2023
Julian Charriere
Julian Charrière is a Swiss-born, Berlin based artist whose work often focuses on nature, ecology and the changing climate. He was included in the Venice Biennial (2017) and was recently the subject of a solo show at the Dallas Museum of Art (2021). For his first Los Angeles exhibit, Buried Sunshine, Charrière was drawn to the subject of oil and researched the history and photographed the oil fields that dot the L.A. landscape. He has beautifully crafted a seductive, mixed media installation that includes the video projection Controlled Burn (2022) and a new series of heliographs titled Buried Sunshines Burn.
Controlled Burn is a 32 minute video that cycles through the sights and sounds of numerous implosions, flames and fireworks that fill the darkness of the night sky. Shot from above by drone, the footage documents ambiguous and deep quasi-military, yet now abandoned spaces including cooling towers, rocket silos and oil platforms that are surrounded by ricocheting projectiles. Amidst thunderous roars, viewers who look carefully may suddenly realize that what they are seeing is impossible and that Charrière is projecting the footage in reverse. This makes it even more bewildering.
Along the walls in the darkened gallery space are large-scale photographic images — heliographs. Scenes shot on location around Los Angeles' oil fields are imprinted on high-polished stainless steel with light sensitive emulsion that incorporates tar from the LaBrea, McKittrick and Carpinteria Tar Pits. Charrière traveled around the state to document local oil fields from above and presents them as subtle, reflective abstractions that need to be viewed in low light in order to see the nuances of the depictions. These heliographs, including the 86 inch tall Buried Sunshines Burn | 1Z.CXO (2023) hover between abstraction and representation, as well as art, history and science as Charrière takes into consideration Los Angeles' dependency on oil and the cities conflicting relationship to it, especially given the increasing environmental concerns.
As the title Buried Sunshine suggests, Charrière's images do not depict sun-filled skies and receding horizons or colorful sunsets. Rather, he is interested in how cities like Los Angeles appear from above and investigates how the intricacies of the natural and man-made worlds intermingle. The photographs, while amazingly beautiful and seductive, are about industrialization and the black fluids that travel beneath the earth's surface. Coupled with Controlled Burn, the exhibition serves as a warning of an imagined apocalypse to come.