Supercargo Ayoke

OPENING:
Saturday, October 1, 2016, 6 pm

EXHIBITION DATA:
October 1 to November 18, 2016
 

During his two-month residency in the Philippines, the artist recontextualized the German Bauhaus on Ayoke island, located off the coast of the archipelago facing the Pacific Ocean. He reconstructed Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous "Fallingwater" in the jungle, painted Lothar Schreyers "Totenbett der Frau" on a bedsheet, carved Bauhaus designs on coconuts, and built modernist chairs from materials found on the island. Turn-of-the-20th century designs and studies from Europe were repeated by Moosgaard in an almost ritualistic, shamanic way – not only questioning notions of the modern and the "pre-modern" (Bruno Latour), but also testing the early modernist ambition to create a "universal language". He also commissioned weavings and chairs from local artisans, encouraging them to use traditional techniques and local materials, and to re-imagine the Bauhaus designs in this new context. Working in close cooperation with the local community, the project resulted in a peculiar amalgam of traditional Filipino culture and early Western modernism. In an attempt to revitalize the subject, a hybrid between indigenous materials and Bauhaus design principles is formulated, blurring the lines along the sacred and the mundane, the native and the mass produced object.

Peter Moosgaard’s work revolves around the sacred quest for "Supercargo,” a messianic freight that will be summoned by rudimentary replicas of artworks and products. The term is the derived from “cargo cult,” a ritualistic occurrence arising from contact between indigenous inhabitants and colonizing figures. According to this "Cult of the Cargo" the imitation of goods (cargo) from local materials would bring wealth and prosperity to its performers. Moosgaard’s objective has always been to challenge notions of originality and purity by mimicking objects of a certain global attraction.

Realised under the Unifiedfield Nomadic AIR Program in the Philippines

Team Ayoke: Angely Chi, Larry O. Maturan, Libet Nacamay, Julieta Bucalon, Esmeraldo Bou, Susanna Guarte, Arnold Orillaneda 

Supported by BMUKK, NÖ Kultur, Austrian Embassy Manila