Unveiling Nicolas Party’s ‘Cretaceous’ Interpretation
Unveiling Nicolas Party's 'Cretaceous' Interpretation
- Exhibition Overview: Party’s ‘Cretaceous’ exhibition features 12 works, spanning a range from a sleeping infant to landscapes and fire depictions.
- Exploring Apocalypse: By juxtaposing a baby and fiery scenes, Party prompts contemplation of contemporary apocalyptic themes in relation to the past.
- Symbolism and Reflection: The exhibition merges past and present aesthetics, addressing questions of vulnerability and continuity in the face of potential extinction.
icolas Party's exhibition, 'Cretaceous', analyzed through anthropologist Tim Ingold's exhibition text, challenges viewers with profound inquiries. The showcase, hosted at The Modern Institute's Aird's Lane and Bricks Space, features 12 works and marks Party's sixth solo presentation at the gallery. The exhibition commences with 'Baby' (2023), a slumbering infant symbolizing an innate bond with the natural world. This infant sets the thematic tone, followed by monumental pastel depictions of landscapes, smaller oil-on-copper images, and concluding with evocative pastel and oil representations of a forest ablaze.
Through juxtaposing an image of a newborn with scenes of a fiery forest, Party compels contemplation on our contemporary reality within the context of the ‘Cretaceous’ era’s extinction event. The infant is swathed in golden fabric, framed in a manner reminiscent of Italian Renaissance devotion art, reflecting Party’s prior inspiration from exhibitions like ‘Triptych’ in 2022. Additionally, the arched frames of the forest fire scenes echo religious symbols, connecting the themes of innocence and divine retribution.
Time and scale emerge as central motifs in the exhibition, evident in both subject matter and artwork dimensions. However, the individual pieces could be considered relatively shallow. While references to the sublime and artists like Courbet and O’Keeffe are apparent, Party’s color palette and smooth style evoke commercial aesthetics, akin to vintage packaging designs. Dinosaur works resemble sentimental postcards, hinting at the history of scientific illustration and its inadvertent misinterpretations. A lone dinosaur piece, positioned subtly, signifies anthropomorphic solitude, highlighting the overshadowing of one crisis by a more imminent threat.
The core question posed by ‘Cretaceous’ isn’t about the infant’s dreams but rather its symbolic significance—whether an assertion of reproductive futurism or an admission of defeat. Wrapped in golden fabric and portrayed in an enigmatic manner, ‘Baby’ may represent both birth and death. Despite a seemingly neat resolution, the show’s underlying subtext retains a certain level of transparency.
