FOOD FOR THE MOON

source: e-flux

Can you give a brief description of the exhibition Lea Porsager – FOOD FOR THE MOON?

The site-specific work, FOOD FOR THE MOON – Sluggish and Well-lubricated centers on Armenian mystic and spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff’s sci-fi novel Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (or, An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man). According to Beelzebub, people fed their life energy to the moon in order to keep the moon from going berserk. The novel introduces the Kundabuffer, an organ inserted at the base of humans’ spines, designed to keep them from realizing their role in the cosmic economy. Even after removal, the organ continues to exert its influence, condemning man to lethargy, horniness, and aggressive senselessness.

In the solo exhibition, Lea Porsager has reimagined the kundabuffer and other elements in Gurdjieff’s story. There is a serious, yet playful translation and distilling of ideas that happens in the work on view, which is perhaps surprisingly minimal. The work may evoke an inverted lightning field (Walter de Maria) or draw formal connections to Jean Arp, or the surrealists, but there are so many other layers for the viewer who wishes to dig in. There is a political core in the project and in Lea’s practice that I hope does not go overlooked. She goes deep into her material and really inhabits and negotiates the theories her works revolve around. The texts by Donna Haraway and particularly by Karan Barad that inform FOOD FOR THE MOON are pretty radical in terms of the paradigm shift they propose. Both are unusual scientists theorizing a shift away from a human-centric world and the common binaries (culture/nature, female/male, human/inanimate) that it relies on to a world of «intraactions» that puts us in a very different relationship to things (inanimate objects) and even technology. Their theories require a kind of rewiring of our thinking – an inversion of sorts that I find very intriguing. What’s refreshing is that Lea doesn’t use these theories as a prop to justify the work; instead FOOD FOR THE MOON has grown from deep inside these theories and become something else.
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source: d13documentade

Lea Porsager, born in 1981 in Denmark, studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, and the Städelschule, Frankfurt/Main. Her works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions at Kumu, Tallinn (2012), Aros, Aarhus (2011), Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (2011), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2010), and Röda Sten, Gothenburg (2006). In 2008, Porsager was awarded the Montana Enter Prize.
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source: caclt

Lea Porsager yra Kopenhagoje gyvenanti menininkė, tyrinėjanti alternatyvių subkultūrų ir okultizmo, kaip virtualių kitoniškumo erdvių, istorinę reikšmę XIX–XX amžių sandūroje – laikotarpiu, kai susiformavo šiandieninės racionalizmo ir mokslo diskursų sampratos. Jos darbų pagrindą sudaro konceptualaus mąstymo, filmo, instaliacijos, performanso, fotografijos ir rašymo disciplinos.