The World Isnʼt Working

The World Isnʼt Working, boldly states one of the billboard sized slogans that are part of Mark Titchnerʼs first solo show with Peres Projects Berlin, a second is currently on display in the city itself. Size being one element in the exhibition, the artist plays with language and sculpture by exploring the abstruseness of text, sound and aesthetics described as “a type of future lieu de memoire”. The opening of Plateau Aurora Borealis fell upon the Halloween weekend, and one could not help but feel a sense of ghostly other-wordly-ness afloat.  

In the Young God series large-scale silk-screened portraits feature Nelson Mandela, Michail Gorbatschow and Margret Thatcher in silver and gold, which are marked by Chakric diagrams and tower fiercely over the viewer. These images of leaders from the cold war era implement an underlying political current, noticeable throughout the work. The slogan billboard references the propaganda-laden campaign Labour isnʼt Working, which made Saatchi & Saatchiʼs name and became the benchmark for political advertising as it sold the Conservative Party to the British in 1979. As the Western world currently faces economical crises bringing recession and unemployment under governments that are not working in their countriesʼ favour, these statements could not be more apt in their execution and timing.

Further, Titchner has created two colossal wind chimes entitled So Much Noise To Make A Silence, one hundred times the size of the smaller Chimes Of Glory, indicating a juxtaposition between the notion of sound or silence as the case may
be. Perhaps the most striking piece in the exhibition is Plateau Aurora Borealis itself - a vast wall sculpture made of mainly steel and graphite, adorned by his combination of poetical, pop and Marxist manifesto-like verses, termed the “New Sincerity - a fictional system of radical expressionistic withdrawal that appears in times of chaos and doubt.” The added hands of steel clasping candles can perhaps be interpreted as a sign of hope in this phase of instability and uncertainty. Maybe they are also a nod to those evil spirits. You decide…
 
Plateau Aurora Borealis runs from November 1st through - January 31st, 2009 at Peres Projects Berlin.