ART CITIES: London-Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster is an experimental artist. Engaging with the exhibition as a medium, her spatial inventions and investigations probe the notion of display, as well as how an image or scene is experienced. Drawing on a wide range of references from music, literature, film, architecture and pop culture, the artist creates densely layered environments that transport viewers into alternative narrative, temporal and psychological dimensions.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Serpentine Gallery Archive

“Alienarium 5” is a speculative environment that invites us to imagine possible encounters with extraterrestrials. The exhibition is a culmination of Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s decades-long interest in science fiction, and her continued research into deep space and alien life. For the exhibition the artist has collaborated with Paul B. Preciado (writer and philosopher), Martial Galfione (architect), Julien Perez (musician), Barnabé Fillion (parfumier), Mélanie Gerbeaux (hair and makeup artist) and Ivan Murit (artist and designer) to transform the Serpentine into a spectacular and otherworldly vision. A multi-user VR piece contemplates new forms of connection through alien embodiment, while an immersive 360-degree collage titled “Metapanorama” uses outer space as a framework to bring humans, nonhumans and extraterrestrials together. With live apparitions appearing at various points during the exhibition. Connecting to Serpentine’s historical role as a tea house and site of rendezvous – as well as to past exhibitions by spiritualist artists Emma Kunz and Hilma af Klint “Alienarium 5” serves as a meeting point for friends from the past, the present and a time not yet named. Welcoming visitors into a world of expanded possibility the exhibition is,  in the artist’s words, ‘a mutant place contributing to the invention of new technologies of consciousness. It is an anti-War of the Worlds vision. “Planet Carpet (Uranus)” is the ground upon which you walk. Based on a picture of the planet Uranus rendered in artificial colours, the work is site-specific and connects the various environments that make up the exhibition. “Planet Carpet (Uranus)” relates in pattern and tone to the “Metapanorama” and initiates an interconnected mode of being. “Alienflowers (holorium)” are invisible and can be found growing in different parts of “Alienarium 5”, but mainly in the holorium and next to La chambre humaine (bed). Deriving nourishment from interactions with other species, the fragrant “Alienflowers (holorium)” also receive nutrients from the sunlight that streams through the oculus. “Metapanorama” is a 360-degree assembly of beings – human and non-human – places, plants and artworks. Floating around the Earth they are gathered somewhere in outer space. On a satellite or a meteorite, perhaps? Or some minor planet?  Within this dimension non-living figures such as artist Georgia O’Keeffe (and choreographer and dancer Loie Fuller commune with living artists like Precious Okoyomon and Arca. In this realm, fictional and non-fictional characters unite as a band of outsiders against  a backdrop where works by Maria Martins, Gustav Metzger and Odilon Redon come to life. Building upon “Volcanic Excursion (A Vision)” – Gonzalez-Foerster’s first 360-degree panorama based on a night-time vision and made for her solo exhibition at Secession (Vienna, 2019). “Alienarium” is a multi-user VR experience that initiates an embodied consideration of extraterrestrial life. Produced by VIVE Arts and developed by Lucid Realities. Visitors are invited to explore in and through one of five distinct extraterrestrial bodies, transporting them out of their own human experience. Encounters with other alien beings expand understandings of connection, asking how we might relate to one another when untethered from our physical forms.

Photo: Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster with Martial Galfione and Mike Gaughan, Metapanorama, 2022, 360-degree collage and sound environment, Soundscape: Julien Perez. Generative pattern: Ivan Murit, © Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Courtesy the artist and Serpentine Gallery

Info: Serpentine South Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London, United Kingdom, Duration: 14/4-4/9/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.serpentinegalleries.org/