Substrate: Netally Schlosser at CCA, Tel Aviv

Art-making functions, in part, as a way to lend form to material. This means that artists are especially attuned to the dramatic changes that are reshaping our material environment. From extreme changes to our climate system, through the utter confluence between the natural and the artificial, humanity’s imprint on the planet is so entrenched that scientists now speak of a new geological era –the era of man, or the Anthropocene. The nine artists included in this exhibition respond to the transformations in our environment in various manifestations, not as themes in their work but as source material.

 

The concept of substrate In biochemistry refers to the molecule on which an enzyme acts, causing a chemical reaction. Similarly, the artworks in “Substrate” offer physical testament to an environment in flux, at times actively undergoing a material transformation of their own. The exhibiting artists adopt different methods of controlling natural processes and bring about a new materiality, one that is hybrid, vibrating. The works on display do not lend themselves fully to our gaze or to immediate interpretation. Even when they may seem as “conventional” art objects – such as a painterly relief or an object displayed on a pedestal –they have an elusive quality that speaks to the forces that are reshaping our physical surrounding in real time.

 

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