A-Biotic with Andrea Francolino

PRIVATE VIEW 31st of July 2014, 6:30 - 9:00PM


“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Imagine a time when all that we know is gone. Towering skyscrapers and concrete giants, all that epitomises humankind’s modern achievement, are powerless in the face of time. Gleaming walls of glass and marble are reduced to dust and rubble. Imagine, now, what would remain among the rusted, twisted steel and desiccated piles of stone – a tendril of something green, vibrant and alive. New leaves sprout from a mountain of concrete, rising delicately towards the sun. It is nature, creeping back, coming to reclaim this wasteland, for even in the bleakest place there is always life. In Andrea Francolino’s solo exhibition, A-Biotic (1 August – 7 September), the artist does not predict a post-Apocalyptic world, but rather, explores our contemporaneity and what it means to be human within a consumerist society. “Consumerism, consumerist behaviour, hedonism, waste, technocracy, uniformity, climate change and hunger are all part of our era,” he says. “I need to a find a way to think and communicate the meaning of life in all of this, and what it means for us to be human at this time.”