Saatchi

Idris Khan Every...Bernd And Hilla Becher Spherical Type Gasholders 2004 Photographic print 208 x 160 cm

The Bechers took their photos as a means to document a disappearing tradition; by grouping them according to ‘typology’ the buildings’ designs function like archetypal symbols or an architectural language. Through Khan’s translucent aggregations, structures such as ...Spherical Type Gasholders lose their commanding simplicity and rigid formalism and descend into fractured and gestural blurs. Through his photographs Khan compresses the timeline of repetition into indivisible subsuming moments and creates a poetic mutability from the fixed codes of history. Ximena Garrido-Lecca The Followers 2010 Mixed media installation 457 x 1,169 x 27.5 cm Ximena Garrido-Lecca’s The Followers is a lovingly crafted reproduction of a burial wall – or nichos – from her native Peru where it is customary to adorn graves with flowers, photographs and objects to accompany the dead into the afterlife. Each niche renders not only a portrait of a deceased person – of their humble luxuries and predilections – but also a portrait of a people annihilated by colonialism. Garrido-Lecca is a strong advocate for the revival of Peru’s indigenous culture, and often makes reference to European art traditions to critique and rebalance history. She conceives The Followers in relation to still life paintings, subverting their Christian interpretation as vanitas or death warnings with traditional Peruvian values which celebrate the cult of the dead. Amidst the baroque decorations, catholic iconography, and kitsch bijoux, the buoyant spirit of an ancient culture becomes intensely and triumphantly evident. Tessa Farmer Swarm 2004 Mixed media Vitrine: 208.3 x 243.8 x 68.6 cm Made from desiccated insect remains, dried plant roots, and other organic ephemera, Tessa Farmer’s tiny sculptures give a glimpse into the world of fairies. No story book land of Tinkerbells, Farmer’s Swarm envisions the purveyors of mischief and magic as an actual species, as animalistic and Darwinian as any other. Exchanging Victorian romanticism for the darker pragmatism of science, Farmer evidences her specimens as fearsome skeletal fiends, plausible “hell’s angels” of a microscopic apocalypse. Posed in dramatic battle formations, Farmer’s menagerie wages war against garden variety pests; each figure, painstakingly hand crafted and adorned with real insect wings, stands less than 1 cm tall.