Damian Ortega : Apestraction

6 Jun-1 Sep 2013

Overview

Ortega is well known for his sculptures, installations, videos, photographs and actions. Mundane objects feature prominently, from golf balls and pick-axes to bricks, rubbish bins and even tortillas – all subjected to what has been described as Ortega’s characteristic “mischievous process of transformation and dysfunction”. The artist was invited to visit the Gashaka region in Nigeria: one of the last remaining wildernesses in West Africa, where the rarest subspecies of chimpanzees survives and where the Gashaka Primate Project has its base. By taking an artist to the wilderness, bridges and boundaries between art and science are instinctively created. This exhibition explores these divisions and their transgressions through the work of Ortega. Unlike a dissecting and objectifying scientist, an artist will be able to contextualize the sensitivities of our natural and cultural side in a more nuanced, private and subjectified way – thus honouring Freud’s idea that our psyche is at the heart of our existence.