Gatekeepers

×

Expand

Rochelle Goldberg, “gatekeepers,” 2019

installation view at Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver (photo by Rachel Topham Photography, courtesy of Catriona Jeffries)

“May endless industry keep your fields green …” 

This quote, pulled from Rochelle Goldberg’s exhibition description, reads as both an optimistic statement about industrial agriculture and a sarcastic rebuke of its ecological complications. Goldberg, who was born in Vancouver and now works out of New York, has recently shown her work across North America and Europe. Gatekeepers is her first solo exhibition at Vancouver’s Catriona Jeffries and coincides with her nomination to the long list for the Sobey Art Award, given to Canadian artists aged 40 and under. 

Gatekeepers, on view until July 13, laments the injurious cycles and systems that enable the production and consumption of vast amounts of organic matter. Materially, the works are full of contrasts that push viewers to think beyond simple dichotomies of the natural and the unnatural. Refined, fabricated and rigid materials like steel and plastic intertwine with the living, fluid and botanical. Given these unexpected co-habitations and Goldberg’s agricultural theme, visitors may feel like they are walking amongst the rotted vestiges of a dystopic farm.

×

Expand

Rochelle Goldberg, “Halo II,” 2019

cardboard, tissue paper, lilies, shellac, gold pigment, gold tape and dirt, 27” x 27” x 3” (photo by Rachel Topham Photography, courtesy of Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver)

Placed like circular bookends to the gallery, Halo I and Halo II fix moments of biological life in a state of near-death. They are assembled like a vernacular natural history display with a shellac coating that encases lilies, gold pigment and soil, adhering them to cardboard supports. Saintly halos frame the lilies, often placed at funerals, in a state neither decomposed nor alive. They become a consecrated memorial to an undisturbed life cycle.

×

Expand

Rochelle Goldberg, “Stomach,” 2019

glass bowls, water, cast bronze matches, celeriac, plastic sheeting, bed skirt, dispersion paint, polyester fabric and rebar, 12” x 118” x 88”  (photo by Rachel Topham Photography, courtesy of Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver)

In Stomach, Goldberg has arranged a stained brown bed skirt to frame an assemblage of bowls filled with water and covered with plastic sheeting. Hugging the edges of the skirt are scattered groupings of dried celeriac, or celery root, an edible plant that had medicinal and religious uses in ancient Greece and Egypt. Gold-painted matches are inserted into the tops of many of the withered roots, an apparent link between the stomach and the ravaging flame. 

×

Expand

Rochelle Goldberg, “Cosmic Footing” (detail), 2019

celeriac, ginger, cast aluminum matches and cast bronze matches, installation dimensions variable (photo by Rachel Topham Photography, courtesy of Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver)

Cosmic Footing, installed nearby, is a companion piece to Stomach. Here the celeriac is not only alive but congregating. Matches cast in aluminum are shoved like spears into the imagined hearts of the bulbous roots. However, some roots are propped up on matchstick stilts, claiming agency as they seemingly march in unison out of the gallery.

With the show’s many historical, religious, horticultural and industrial connotations and a lack of interpretive materials, viewers are well advised to embrace the mysterious murmurs of the ancient, the botanical and the elegiac. ■

Gatekeepers is on view at Catriona Jeffries in Vancouver from May 25 to July 13, 2019.