Exhibition: Concentrations 63: Julian Charrière, Towards No Earthly Pole, Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, TX—April 5, 2021—The Dallas Museum of Art presents Concentrations 63: Julian Charrière, Towards No Earthly Pole, the first US solo museum exhibition for the multidisciplinary French-Swiss artist. Julian Charrière creates work that bridges the realms of environmental science and cultural history. Based on scientific research and expeditions to remote regions of Earth, his sculptures, photographs, and films investigate the irreversible transformation of the natural world by human activity. Charrière references pre-human origins, global explorers of the past, present-day climate change, and the uncertain future of the planet. While his works address environmental exploitation, they also emphasize nature’s magnificence and resilience. Concentrations 63: Julian Charrière, Towards No Earthly Pole opens to the public on May 2, 2021, and is on view through August 8. The exhibition is included in free general admission.
“Julian Charrière is a conscious and impressively ambitious artist, and we are proud to introduce his highly relevant work to our audiences,” said Dr. Agustín Arteaga, the DMA’s Eugene McDermott Director.“ He is a fresh voice engaging in a long art historical tradition of documenting breathtaking encounters with nature—one example being a masterpiece of our own collection, Frederic Edwin Church’s painting The Icebergs—while bringing a 21st-century sensitivity to the impact of exploration. Visitors are sure to be fascinated by the findings of his research.”
“Charrière’s work is as thought-provoking as it is seductive. His practice, rooted in film, sculpture, and photography, matches technical and formal achievement with conceptual rigor that situates the viewer in a rich network of scientific, art historical, and sociopolitical references. Although his art takes us on a journey to the ends of the earth and through geologic and historic time, the result is our increased awareness of interdependence and the wide-reaching impact of our actions in the here and now and on future generations,” said Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the DMA’s Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art and curator of the Dallas presentation.
“Charrière . . . endeavours to rediscover the feeling of astonishment that ancient man felt confronted by nature,” wrote Mousse magazine when Towards No Earthly Pole premiered in Switzerland at Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana (MASI), Lugano and Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, and at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. An exhibition catalog co-published by MASI Lugano, Aargauer Kunsthaus, and the DMA, includes an essay by Brodbeck.
This exhibition is part of the Museum’s Concentrations series, which presents a recently completed body of work or site-specific installation by an emerging artist, generally as their first US solo museum exhibition. Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the series began in 1981 as part of the DMA’s commitment to the work of living artists.
All works by Julian Charrière. Installation Views: Concentrations 63: Julian Charrière, Towards No Earthly Pole, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, USA, 2021. Photos by Chad Redmon
