LONDON — In Swiss artist Mai-Thu Perret’s second solo exhibition, Zone, and her first at the London Simon Lee Gallery (November 23, 2016 – February 4, 2017), Perret creates interdisciplinary works that combine the languages of feminism, politics, theater, nature, religion and art history.
Above image: Mai-Thu Perret, Again this thousand-year-old eggplant root, 2016, Glazed ceramic, 28 7/10 × 28 7/10 × 2 inches. Offered by and images courtesy Simon Lee Gallery
Zone exhibition view
Mai-Thu Perret, Zone, 2016, Stainless steel, glazed ceramic, electrical pump, rubber hose, water, 28 3/10 × 43 1/10 × 84 3/5 inches.
Zone expands on Perret’s own fictional narrative The Crystal Frontier, which the artist has been writing since 1999. Perret’s writing follows a group of women who form a commune in the remote desert of southwestern New Mexico in an attempt to escape capitalism and patriarchal convention. Perret’s new body of work also draws on French avant-garde writer and feminist theorist Monique Wittig’s novel Les Guérillères (first published in 1969) that imagines a society run by a tribe of lesbian warrior women.
Mai-Thu Perret, Be fearful and alert, as if peering into an abyss, as if treading onto thin ice, 2016
Glazed ceramic, 18 9/10 × 14 3/5 × 2 4/5 inches
Mai-Thu Perret, On the coral pillow two streams of tears. Half longing for you half resenting you, Glazed ceramic, 2016
Wittig’s layered, interconnected style of writing and Dada collage techniques are referenced in the scale and range of works in the exhibition, reflecting Perret’s interest in formal strategies of disruption, dissonant elements and materials to explore different histories, political situations and how objects function within and influence the social systems they inhabit.
Mai-Thu Perret, (left)I have broken my plain mountain staff. The great earth has always been deep deep black, (right) Rosy mists and blue haze cover high and low sweet grass and wildflowers are everywhere in spring, 2016. Glazed ceramic tiles and steel
Mai-Thu Perret, The slightest contact is at once ignorance, but this ignorance is fundamentally the way, 2016, Glazed ceramic tiles and steel, 28 7/10 × 24 × 1 3/5 inches
The exhibition’s title Zone can simultaneously refer to a meditative, mindful space and a war zone.
Mai-Thu Perret, Zone, 2016, Offered and image courtesy Simon Lee Gallery. Click for larger image
Text (edited) from Simon Lee. Objects offered by and images courtesy Simon Lee Gallery.
Mai-Thu Perret, She runs horses in lightning, 2016, Glazed ceramic, 19 3/10 × 54 3/10 × 2 inches
Mai-Thu Perret, Natural Sophie, 2016, Wicker, MDF, acrylic varnish, 68 9/10 × 39 2/5 × 39 2/5 inches
Mai-Thu Perret, Sister, 2016, Screenprint on paper, 34 3/5 × 25 inches
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Read more of Cfile’s reflections of Perret’s work.
Zone exhibition view
Zone exhibition view
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