PSM is pleased to announce GROUND TO SKY, the first solo exhibition at the gallery by Welsh-German artist duo, AWST & WALTHER.
Wrested from the earth, a single length of hedge hangs in the centre of the space. Whilst formally resembling the reduced aesthetics of Minimalism, the installation transcends the traditional minimalist object’s semantic autonomy, and brings about a telling set of relations.
In contemporary society, the typical garden hedge is perhaps most readily associated with bourgeois settlements and represents borders and demarcation of territory. It is a living architectural form, passed by countless times, unnoticed and unconsidered – a social tool that has been cultivated and shaped by mankind over centuries.
Placed in this most curious suspension in a gallery space, we are cast into a purposefully uncertain zone. It’s function is challenged and it’s fragility is magnified by the exposed roots.
There is a momentary abatement and gradual decay of all that it stands for – division, established order, private ownership. Values are uprooted; shifted.
Like much of Awst & Walther’s work, Ground to Sky questions some of the basic foundations of society, demanding a revised interpretation of our relationship with the world surrounding us, and our understanding of self and other.
Informed by the artists’ backgrounds in Architecture and Theatre, the role of the audience is indispensable to the reading of the piece. Legs are seen shuffling below the roots, snippets of bodies peak through the hedge’s dense branches. Ground to Sky provides a mirror for contemporary society, confronting us with the complex and shifting relationships in our chaotic global world.
