The exhibition Dead or Alive is presented by the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) from April 27 through to October 24, 2010 and will showcase the work of over 30 international artists and designers who transform organic materials and objects that were once produced by or part of living organisms, such as insects, feathers, bones, silkworm cocoons, plant materials and hair, into intricately crafted installations and sculptures.

In Dead or Alive, all the materials transformed by the artists are entirely natural. Once-living parts of flora and fauna are recombined and rearranged into works that address the transience of life.

American artist Christy Rupp uses the bones of chickens discarded by fast food restaurants to create life-size skeletal reconstructions of extinct birds, including the Great Auk, the Moa and the California Condor. Her Dodo Bird, on view in Dead or Alive, is a meditation on man slowly devouring his environment.

Tracy Heneberger’s pieces are made using natural life around water, often using found materials. His works are built up with multiples of organisms such as sardines, squid and mushrooms to create form and colour. Tracy often fixes his materials in bronze or in shellac and resin. The exhibition piece Moon, is made from anchovies set with epoxy, shellac and resin.

Dutch performance artist Levi van Veluw uses his own body to create highly complex photographs and videos. In his Landscape series, the artist turns his face into a springtime meadow, complete with tiny sheep and trees, overturning traditional concepts of landscape by placing the human body at its core.

Fabian Peña from Cuba utilises insects to comment on the human cycle of life and death. In The Impossibility of Storage for the Soul, a human skull is created from cockroach wing fragments on translucent paper. Installed in four light boxes, the wings transport a soft warm light into the gallery.

Emu Flag & Cloak (Fluro Orange) by Columbian-born artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso is made from nylon netting and emu feathers and forms part of the artist’s emu wear series, orginally created as part performance, part fashion, part “animal-morphism” for the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Australia.

American artist Nick Cave uses leaves, hair, twigs, and other found objects to create bold costume-sculptures called Soundsuits. When worn and moved about in, the Soundsuits create a soundscape from the materials used, refering back to traditional ritual and ceremony. The Soundsuit shown uses cotton, twigs and synthetic pussywillows.

Cauda Equina by Canadian Keith W. Bentley is created using a taxidermy mannequin and hand-knotted horse hairs on fabric. Inspired by the funeral etiquette of the late Victorian era, with its gradual reduction of the severity of black to be worn by widows, Cauda Equina mourns the death of more than 250 horses, all of which were slaughtered in processing plants. The artist says, “Instead of crepe, this veil has been fabricated by hand embroidering the hairs from each horse onto fabric and then draped over the body of a taxidermy form. But unlike its Victorian predecessor, this veil will not be lifted anytime soon. Thousands of horses are sent to processing plants each year. Cauda Equina will forever be their eulogy.”

Untitled #150 (Black Chicken #1) by Simen Johan, 2009 creates pieces that use natural materials to depict a world that blurs reality, fantasy and nightmare. Using both traditional photographic techniques with digital, the artist’s images are created over time and may involve several different landscapes and animals. Untitled #150 is made from feathers, cocoons, sparrows, insects, foliage, taxidermy, cement, rock and wood.

MAD Museum

Image credits top to bottom:
Dodo Bird, Christy Rup, 2007, Courtesy of the artist and Frederieke Taylor Gallery, NY Photo: Nick Ghiz
Moon, Tracy Heneberger, 2006, Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Tony Holmes
Landscape I, Levi Van Veluw, 2008, Courtesy of Ronmandos Gallery, Amsterdam
The Impossibility of Storage for the Soul I (Self-Portrait), Fabian Pena, 2007 (detail). Collection of the West Collection, Oaks, Pennsylvania, Photo: Oriol Tarridas
Emu Flag & Cloak (Fluro Orange), Maria Fernanda Cardoso, 2006-2008, Courtesy of Sicardi Gallery, Houston, © Maria Fernanda Cardoso
Soundsuit Nick Cave, 2006, Photo: James Prinz
Cauda Equina, Keith W. Bentley, 1995-2007, Photo: Stanzie Tooth
Untitled #150 (Black Chicken #1), Simen Johan, 2009, Unique Photograph by Simen Johan, © Simen Johan, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, NY

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