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Swarm Gallery

May 15 - June 22, 2009

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560 Second Street Oakland, CA 94607
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Ground Control Joseph Smolinski, Cemetery (2009), Ink, watercolor and graphite on paper, 26 x 40 inches
We are proud to present Joseph Smolinski’s first solo show on the West Coast. GROUND CONTROL debuts a new body of work – graphite on paper, sculpture-based installation and video, encompassing hopeful and catastrophic visions of the contemporary landscape. Smolinski is in curious awe of nature. Through developing societies, tragedies of war and natural disasters, trees continue to regulate our climate, improve our water quality and clean our air. The oldest and largest organisms on our planet have survived a history longer than we can seem to remember. Images of trees permeate his work not only through its religious, political and personal histories but also as means to question technology and the future of the natural world. One day Smolinski came across a giant fake tree looming above the interstate landscape. This pseudo-biotech hybrid was erected to camouflage the cellular communication transmitters beneath its fronds. In this vision, parasitic cell tower trees populate the landscape in many forms that become historical landmarks, roadside curiosities and subjects of natural disasters. Through these explorations, Smolinski wondered what else the tree could become. He began reading about wind power and its aesthetic opponents that lead him to the Tree Turbine project. It is clear that wind generated electricity is a clean sustainable alternative to climate-warming fossil fuels. He concluded that if these opposing groups disguised their cell towers as trees then why not a wind turbine? In 2008, Smolinski presented a video and series of sculptures, drawings and documentation of a 20-foot tall prototype at Mass MoCA as part of the exhibition “Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape.” A three-part installation in the gallery titled, Taking Back the Jetty, comments on a future where the oil companies have succeeded in their quest for oil defacing the pristine view from Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty in Utah's Great Salt Lake. The last resort to preserve this site, perhaps more devastating than the first, is a very powerful and dramatic act. Joseph Smolinski has exhibited at Mixed Greens (NY), Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, MA, among others. His work is in the collections of West Collection at SEI, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and Yale University Art Gallery. Joseph’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, and Time Out NY. Joseph currently lives and works in New Haven, CT and is represented on the East Coast by Mixed Greens (NY).