Christina
Hemauer and Roman
Keller
Saturday
16 April to Sunday 29 May
2011
Opening: Friday 15 April, 6.30 – 8.30 pm
Performance of American president’s dedication to the White
House solar installation: 7.30
pm
A Road Not Taken (2010), film screening and Q&A with
the artists: Saturday 16 April 2.30
pm
Cubitt Gallery presents the first UK solo exhibition by Swiss
artists Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller. Through performance, video,
sculptural-recreation, text and archive material, Hemauer and Keller explore two
short-lived experiments with solar energy, both marking points of change or
crisis in the history of oil
consumption.
Sun of 1913 (2009) looks back to the first
commercial-scale solar power plant, which American engineer Frank Shuman built
in Maadi near Cairo in 1913. In Egypt under British mandate for a short period
solar energy was an economic form of power generation, cheaper than shipping
coal from Britain. However, the plant ceased operation after one year, at the
onset of World War I, as the British Government began mass-scale crude oil
production in Iran, precipitating a widespread turn to oil. The story of
Shuman’s solar plant is told through a narrative written with Egyptian
writer Wageh George. A video projection shows the reconstruction of two segments
of the plant by the artists and craftsmen in
Cairo.
A Curiosity, a Museum Piece and an Example of a Road not
Taken (2006-2007) investigates former American president Jimmy
Carter’s pioneering but ultimately futile energy programme. It culminated
in his symbolic solar installation on the White House roof during the 1979
energy crisis, which was removed by the Ronald Regan administration. At Cubitt,
Hemauer and Keller focus on the solar installation at the point of greatest
potential: its design, construction and ceremonial launch. Archive contact
sheets show the panels being installed. Carter’s speech inaugurating them
– calling America to break its addiction to imported oil – can be
read from a sculptural recreation of a presidential lectern and will be
performed during the exhibition
opening.
Using re-creation and re-enactment to revitalise the optimism of
these pioneering projects, Hemauer and Keller also highlight the time that has
since lapsed; that these were “roads not taken”. They revisit
episodes in the history of oil and solar energy to ask questions about the
present energy situation: increased dependence on, and continued conflict over,
fossil fuels. Since 2003 the focus of their research-based practice has been the
concept of energy as a defining force of modern society, including works and
performances that herald the post-petroleum age and map the relationship between
the history of energy and modern
art.
Christina Hemauer (born 1973 Zurich, Switzerland) and Roman
Keller (born 1969 Liestal, Switzerland) live in Zurich, Switzerland. Recent
exhibitions include United Alternative Energies, Centre for Contemporary Art,
Aarhus, Denmark, curated by Latitudes (2011) and the 11th Cairo International
Biennale, Cairo
(2009).
A Road Not Taken (2010), 66 mins
Film screening and Q&A with the artists: Saturday 16 April 2.30
pm
This will be the UK premier of Hemauer and Keller’s
documentary road trip film A Road Not Taken (2010). The film is
structured around the conceptual act of finding and donating two of
Carter’s solar panels to American history museums as the “museum
pieces” he warned they might become. Through interviews (including with
Carter) and archive footage the film investigates Carter’s energy
programme in the context of his foreign policy on Iran during the 1979 oil
crisis.
Image credit: A Road Not Taken (2010), film still,
Christina Hemauer and Roman
Keller
Spaghetti Junctions is generously supported by the Arts Council England, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, Pro Helvetia, Solar UK, Matt's Gallery and the Zabludowicz
Collection.
|
