L’Air
21 April – 25 May 2005
Frith Street Gallery, London
Wrong Death, 2004, Found lobster pot with silver-plated sheeps skull
Crab 1, 2004, Archival pigment print
Family, 2005, Bronze
Parachute (Detail), 2005, Parachute and gannet
Parachute (Detail), 2005
Antarctica, stills from video
In his meditation on photography and death, Roland Barthes identifies an effect he simply calls l’air, some indefinable “expression” or “look” in the photograph of a lost loved one where the reality of death suddenly takes one by surprise, leading one” to that cry, the end of all language: “There she is !”... words fail.*
On entering the rooms of Frith Street Gallery a tangled, sky-blue parachute hangs from the ceiling with a single taxidermied gannet suspended, as if diving towards the surface of the sea.
The bird attached to the blue parachute, which was used to camouflage itself against the sky, is now encumbered by the equipment.
Many of the works in this show include the death of animals. A gannet that died when diving into shallow water. A thrush leaving its mark by the impact when flying into glass. A sheep that got caught in a lobster pot. Three crabs found dessicated on the shore.
* – Robin Lydenberg, Gone: Site-specific works by Dorothy Cross, Chicago: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 2005. Exhibtion Catalogue. P. 91
List of works (click to expand)
Parachute, 2005, Parachute and gannet, Dimensions variable
Family, 2005, Bronze, Dimensions variable
Thrush Drawing, 2005, Transparency laminated on glass, 25 cm x 20 cm
Crab 4, 2004, Archival pigment print, 76 cm x 74 cm
Crab 3, 2004, Archival pigment print, 76 cm x 74 cm
Crab 1, 2004, Archival pigment print, 99 cm x 77 cm
Antarctica, 2005, Video projection, 22 mins
Wrong Death, 2004, Found lobster pot with silver-plated sheeps skull, 68 cm x 46 cm
Eye Camera, 2004, Bronze, 14 cm x 10 cm x 9 cm
Salve, 2003, Inlaid bog oak on driftwood, 300 cm x 15 cm
Whale (diptych), 2004, Archival pigment print, 53 cm x 68 cm each