"Inheritance"
2010
80 slides of endangered wilderness areas projected onto mist from a humidifier housed in a plywood and fabric enclosure
Environmental historian William Cronon argues that "only people whose relation to the land was already so alienated could hold up wilderness as a model for human life in nature, for the romantic ideology of wilderness leaves precisely nowhere for human beings actually to make their living from the land." I recalled Cronon's incisive critique of wilderness ideology as I pondered artist Elisheva Biernoff's "Inheritance," a compelling installation included in Eli Ridgway Gallery's recent group show, "Better A Live Ass Than A Dead Lion."
"Inheritance" was installed in a dark side gallery on Ridgway's lower level. A wall-mounted, carousel slide projector cast images of "endangered wilderness areas [...] onto mist from a humidifier housed in a plywood and fabric enclosure." The humidifier's fog billowed out of a television-sized opening cut into the plywood, and the projected photographs reflected by the haze were sometimes -- for an instant, when the mist was just so -- recognizable as landscapes, but rarely as specific environments or locations. Without the artist's accompanying list of "disappearing places," viewers couldn't know they were looking at Alaska's Tongass National Forest, Florida's Everglades, Brazil's Pantanal, China's Gobi Desert, or another of nearly 80 imperiled landscapes.
"Inheritance"
2010
80 slides of endangered wilderness areas projected onto mist from a humidifier housed in a plywood and fabric enclosure
Biernoff's installation, which was also included in ProArts Gallery's 2010 "2 X 2 Solos" exhibition program (and, by virtue of its strength, will likely be a part of future exhibitions), is luminous and its effect almost ethereal, but unlike the meditative Light and Space works of James Turrell or Doug Wheeler, Biernoff's installation doesn't provide opportunity for reverie. The transitions between the images are abrupt, and marked by the noisy, mechanical advance of the slide carousel. Ka-jenk, Ka-jenk. Just as we begin to discern the vision roiling in the mist -- 'Is that a jungle? Perhaps a swamp?' -- we're jarred from our musing. Ka-jenk, Ka-jenk. Again, we endeavor to interpret the play of light and color in the vapor, and again: Ka-jenk, Ka-jenk! A contemplative inclination is foiled by the machine's relentless progress, and there's sly humor in Biernoff's frustration of our stubborn need to identify and classify; viewers can see the specters in the mist, but can't make much (if any) sense of them. Even so, we'll continue to plumb the rolling fog for clues.
Our ancestors assigned supernatural qualities to fluid media. They scried smoke to portend future events and viewed it as a vehicle of conveyance, capable of carrying the essence of a sacrifice to the god or spirits of a people. In "The Wizard of Oz," the face of the eponymous wizard appears to the protagonists in a cloud of reddish smoke, causing them to tremble in awe. Seeking a similar experience of wonder, many of the people who visit wilderness areas do so to behold nature's majesty. Their language is often reverent; they speak of the sublime and the transcendent. But what is a wilderness area, exactly? According to the United States Wilderness Act of 1964, wilderness is land that "generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable [...that is] designated for preservation and protection in [its] natural condition." Unfortunately, the "imprint of man" is not always readily observable (consider the nuanced affects of climate change or the irradiated, if picturesque Red Forest that surrounds the decommissioned Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant). More problematically, as Cronon makes clear, the Wilderness Act definition sets man apart from "the forces of nature." This latter move is a Romantic, naive impulse. All habitats are interconnected; even protected landscapes are affected by activities outside their boundaries. Moreover, because many refuges, parks, and wilderness areas are disconnected from other undeveloped lands, the flora and fauna living in these protected areas risk genetic isolation and face an increased risk of local extinction (e.g., the Florida panther and many other critically endangered species). Outside of the Wilderness Act and our collective imagination, then, there is no "original" or "virgin" landscape.
The dreamlike quality of Biernoff's installation is therefore appropriate. The notion of "wilderness" is as indefinite as the mirages the artist creates for us with light and vapor. Some fictions, though, are useful. If the dream of Eden compels us to be better stewards, it's all for the good. Yet Biernoff reminds us that we're more likely to avoid the pitfalls of ideology if we recognize wilderness is an illusion, that the specter before us is manufactured using a humidifier and an outmoded piece of technology. The artist presents us with the wizard's face, but also reminds us of the man behind the curtain.
Elisheva Biernoff's "Inheritance" was on view October 8 - November 5, 2011, at Eli Ridgway Gallery (172 Minna Street, San Francisco).
"Inheritance"
2010
80 slides of endangered wilderness areas projected onto mist from a humidifier housed in a plywood and fabric enclosure
Image credits: "Inheritance" installation photographs, courtesy Eli Ridgway Gallery
Note: Due to carelessness, this write-up was originally published as a "Review In Brief." It's longer than the pieces in that series, however, and is no longer associated with it.
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