Love, Memory, Curiosity is the first exhibition of contemporary art at the Geological Museum. It shows contemporary art as yet another stage of evolution, with the title referring to the words of Charles Darwin: "the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind." Love, memory, and curiosity are common to humans and animals.
The idea for the exhibition was born out of fascination with the function and space of the Geological Museum, where nature becomes a history that needs to be preserved for future generations. Visitors usually struggle to grasp the immense durations of geological eras; the exhibition artists deal with this exercise in geological imagination by incorporating magic and surrealistic elements in their art.
According to Paul Crutzen, a theoretist of the anthropocene, we are witnessing the accelerated development of a new geological era, shaped by current human activity, and not resulting from processes occurring hundreds of thousands and millions of years ago. Mankind has become one of the natural forces that were responsible for the previous eras. Therefore, the artists invited to our exhibition are not inspired by typical geological objects but also new formations, such as fordite, a product of the multiple pressing and baking of many layers of automobile paint at the now defunct Ford factory in Detroit.
Courtesy of the artists
Photocredit Bartek Gorka