The Waste Land

Nicelle Beauchene is pleased to present “The Waste Land”, a group exhibition including the works of Andrés Bedoya, Bea Fremderman, Saskia Krafft, Yeni Mao, James Miller, Marianne Vitale, and Celeste Wilson. The exhibition takes its name from the poem by T.S. Eliot. He published The Waste Land shortly after the end of World War I—empire was in decline, millions of soldiers and civilians were dead from the War, the populace was fractured by violence and disillusioned by rapidly shifting cultural and political landscapes. The poem’s second stanza focuses on the ecological effects of war, portraying a world where only shadows and dust are left behind. The artists included in the exhibition utilize a variety of media to transform industrial or utilitarian materials. The works are homages to the organic or contain traces of a past life. […] Yeni Mao’s sculpture, Fig. 18.3 console, knurled, presents a weapon as a fetish object. Using concrete, acrylic enamel, and ceramic tile, the work becomes a futuristic reliquary. […] A reimagining of Eliot’s “heap of broken images,” The Waste Land considers the anxieties of a barren world.

fig 18.3 console, knurled, steel, ceramic tile, aluminum, cement, leather, cotton cord, acrylic enamel, 41 x 13 x 8in, 104 x 33 x 20cm