Plants are great creations of the world. They are beautiful and inspirational individually and collectively. Artists love them, and plants are often their best friends for creations. However, plants themselves are already lovely artworks of nature. The exhibition “Implant” at UBS gallery shows us how the plants relate to the artists, and how the plants influence human society. This show reminds us that plants are beautiful and powerful, and artists can be the links connecting human beings and plants.
Plants look good in their own way, no matter where they are and what shape they are, and there is always something in common between plants and humans. Walking into the gallery, the first exhibit I see is two photographs taken by Gabriel Orozco. In these two photos, the leaves grow wildly into two shabby rooms from the outside. One of the rooms is an office, and the other room is a bedroom. The way the leaves take up each room is fierce, but elegant. Placing the energized green leaves together with the defunct furniture and rooms makes the photos alive. Overall, it seems like the leaves in the photos attack the human living places, and finally take over the rooms with a massive invasion. And soon, these green things bring color and life to the deathlike scenes. The heavy attack by the leaves might hint at the trend of having plants in the office and our indoor lives, and suggest that more and more people like plants and use them to decorate their environments. It proves the charm of the plants. Meanwhile, with a different angle, we can also see a world problem form the photos: overpopulation. Nowadays, the world population is overgrown, like leaves in the photos. Therefore, can we say that the huge population of leaves in these cadaverous rooms is implying that overpopulation will destroy human communities eventually? Orozco makes us see the ordinary leaves in a new way. However, the leaves are, and we are able to incorporate the plants into our daily lives.
Besides the charming outside, plants are strong as well. Humans can never control the plants, though we think we are controlling them. Dennis Oppenheim’s 16-minute video, Compression-fern (Hand), shows the strength of the plants. In the video, a hand is initially holding a cluster of ferns. Then the hand starts to grip the ferns, and tries to hold all of the ferns in one hand. During the process, the ferns counteract the hand. As a result, it takes a long time to gather the ferns in the hand, and eventually, one hand cannot to hold all of the ferns. Oppenhein says “I’ve never been one to react positively to nature.” So, this experiment changes the artist’s attitude toward nature. At the same time, it demonstrates that humans are unable to contain nature. While, we might change nature, the nature will fight back with its power. We are using nature to improve our lives, such as cutting down the trees for housing and lands. All those doings are changing the nature’s system. In return, nature resists the human societies with disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, and earthquakes. Although we have advanced technologies to predict the disasters, we can never stop them. Hence, when we take benefits from nature, we should think about the repercussions. However, nature has great power, we can never dominate it.
There are works from 45 artists at the “Implant” exhibition. All the works present the beauty and strength of plants, and build a bridge between human society and nature. Viewing the artworks, we can enjoy the joy of nature, and, meanwhile, see social issues through these works. For example, I see housing problems in Hiraki Sawa’s video, and communication matter in Peter Coffin’s “Untitled” Greenhouse. Plants are beautiful artworks themselves, but with editing from the artists, they connect to our lives, and obtain a soul.