Beautiful Decay

Beautiful Decay Review >> by ebnefsi +

'Beautiful Decay' was presented by d/Lux/MediaArts http://www.dlux.org.au in association with Loose Projects http://www.looseprojects.net

Curated by Matt Glenn

Beautiful Decay

In his story “Austerlitz”, W. G. Sebald recites the tale and life of a man seeking to reconcile the truth of a fractured and uncertain past. We learn the mysteries of his ancestry, the uncertainty in his questions and the yearnings to control all these things, not in the least to grasp at some sense of an understanding. As readers we share in Austerlitz’s exploration and frequent deflations. However, not until late in Sebald’s story does the Austerlitz reach a sense of perspective through recalling the timely urgings provided by the character Alphonso.

I remember, said Austerlitz, how Alphonso once told his great-nephew and me that everything was fading before our eyes, and that many of the loveliest of colours had already disappeared, or existed only where no one saw them, in the submarine gardens fathoms deep below the surface of the sea.

For Austerlitz, reasoning was not found in the memories or histories uncovered, but rather in what remained hidden, just beyond his grasp. For to embrace what he could not secure, lead Austerlitz to remark, on reflection of the world before him:

All forms and colours were dissolved in a pearl-grey haze; there were no contrasts, no shading anymore, only flowing transitions with the light throbbing through them, a single blur from which only the most fleeting of visions emerged, and strangely – I remember this well- it was the very evanescence of those visions that gave me, at the time, something like a sense of eternity.

The conundrum is not in preserving the perishable, but in finding eternity in the finite, an entropic cycle where abrupt endings and new beginnings are perhaps one and the same. To suggest that God is in the details is to suggest beauty in the loose thread, the disruptive mark, or the scar from a childhood skirmish becoming character to the adult face; a signpost of adventure, untamed moments and broken hearts, but with an assurance of future romance and fleeting moments. Again and again and again…

images from the exhibiton:

SCA writes:

Matt Glenn presents a curatorial feat exploring the dialogues of beauty, mystery and bewilderment often faced on the brink of chaos, disaster and uncertainty.

Beautiful Decay showcases a broad range of artists representing a cross section of young and established practitioners as a group of individuals diversely communicating similar ideals, notions of the sublime, pathos, decay and resurrection in their respective aesthetic approaches.

Beautiful Decay surveys elements of film, video, installation and photography in works by Daniel Askill, Eileen Botsford, Stephanie Bray, Danny Ford, Matt Glenn and SCA lecturers Simone Doulas and Tanya Peterson in an exhibition seeking to question the sense of NOW, and the small trivialities in-between.