Simon Starling’s Infestation Piece (Musselled Moore) arose from the copy he realised of a sculpture by Henry Moore, that he submerged in Lake Ontario for one and a half years. The sculpture was then colonised by zebra mussels. The two lightboxes contain photographs of the conservation process of this sculpture, later infested by moths when it went on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. This process seemed to lend the sculpture a whole new life and poignancy in terms of the complex relationship between the seemingly hermetic realm of the museum and the ‘natural’ world beyond its walls. This relationship is further dramatized in a newly produced sculpture, Infestation Piece (Mask for Istanbul).
Simon Starling (b. 1967, Epsom, England) is based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Since emerging from the Glasgow art scene in the early 1990s, Simon Starling has established himself as one of the leading artists of his generation, working in a wide variety of media (film, installation, photography) to interrogate the histories of art and design, scientific discoveries, and global economic and ecological issues, among other subjects. The recipient of the 2005 Turner Prize, his recent solo exhibitions include A l’ombre du pin tordu, MRAC, Sérignan (2017); Simon Starling, Nottingham Contemporary (2016); El Eco (In collaboration with Pilar Pellicer and Yasuo Miichi), Museo Experimental el Eco, Mexico City (2015); Metamorphology, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2014). Group exhibitions include 12th Shanghai Biennale (2018), Centre Pompidou Metz (2017), Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2017).
EXHIBITED WORKS
Infestation Piece (Musselled Moore)/Chronology, 2019
Vinyl text
205 × 90 cm (each)
Infestation Piece (Musselled Moore)/Conservation I, 2019
Duratrans, perspex, lightbox
Image size: 118 × 140 cm
Infestation Piece (Musselled Moore)/Conservation II, 2019
Duratrans, perspex, lightbox
Image size: 118 × 140 cm
Infestation Piece (Mask for Istanbul), 2019
Zebra mussel shells, dust mask, epoxy glue, wood and perspex
170 × 35 × 30 cm
Courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider.
Commissioned by the 16th Istanbul Biennial.
Presented with the support of Danish Arts Foundation and British Council.
