hunter/gatherer

The hunter/gatherer artistic installation comprises a sculpture object (made of polyethylene foam and resin) and digitally printed waterproof fabric.

“They are there, painted on the walls and ceilings of caves. Bison, elk, bears, horses, eagles, women, men, these ageless figures. They were born thousands of thousands of years ago, but are born anew each time someone looks at them. How could an ancestor from ancient times paint so delicately? How could a brute, wrestling with wild beasts with bare hands, create images so graceful? How did he manage to draw those flying lines that peel off the stone and soar into the air? How could he?” — Eduardo Galeano, Origins of Beauty

In our self-absorbed times, the anonymous, belonging to no one, becomes mesmerizing and mysterious—hence, it can be commodified and appropriated with grace. Literally, our mere presence introduces sickness and contamination into previously existing narratives or spaces—such as when the Lascaux cave had to be closed to visitors, who irreversibly damaged artworks dating back tens of thousands of years simply by breathing. We would like cave art to reaffirm our sense of greatness, surely inherited from our ancestors. We seek transcendence, treasure, connection with a long-forgotten world and nature that we have dominated. We eagerly seek messages from past generations—a message that is not only undecipherable but was never intended for us. We still haven’t understood the joke.

OBJECT 1:

Interpretations of cave art are fueled by our fantasies of finding a higher power, preferably within our own species. To our disappointment, we find only grotesque, faceless stick figures pathetically weak compared to the surrounding megafauna—like the famous bird-man, falling with a penis on top at the sight of a defecating rhinoceros. Since prehistoric artists had the ability and inclination for detail and realism in their works, mockery of the self is painfully and obviously intentional, thus falling upon their descendants— ourselves. Somewhat mournful, the bird-man sitting on the edge of an empty bear pool in central Berlin seems to understand this.

OBJECT 2:

Humans have collaborated with each other longer than we can imagine— whether creating art or satisfying our ego’s desires, we have always hunted in groups. We have come a long way—from tribe to crowd, from herd to pack. They were here, we were here. Caves containing examples of rock art worldwide feature recognizable decorations depicting human hand outlines—unique signatures of men and women, adults and children, left as mementos for future generations. The work presents our present “handprint,” a sign of our presence in the cave—a selection of the most negative reviews found on Trip Advisor regarding cave paintings in Europe. The project was presented as part of a group exhibition titled “Open Sesame: A Photophobic Experiment” in the former bear enclosure and current gallery space - Bärenzwinger Berlin.