Exhibition:
Emperor Andrew's vision of the flowers of Hlobane blossoming on the fields of Königgrätz, 1866 : Andrew Gilbert solo-exhibition
May 11, 2023 – June 30, 2023
In a culture of remembrance, Berlin-based Scottish artist Andrew Gilbert probes the forgotten. His work moves from powerful installations, expressionistic drawings, and motifs that range from military history, underground subcultures, and voodoo lore.
In doing so, he resurrects long-buried parts of European history, inverts colonial power relations, and exposes the ever-present murderous logic of empire in our collective Western conscience.
His work breaks the first rule of history by using anachronism to create fantasy concoctions involving battles, Leek Phone plantations, and dioramas, mixing timelines, narratives, and characters from the past 150 years into painfully humorous subjects.
For this exhibition, Gilbert transforms the Viennese gallery of Peter Gaugy into an obscure, faded colonial-era museum complete with wallpaper and a human zoo. Hundreds of parrots cry out from the walls as witnesses to the ongoing crimes.
In the center of the room stands an ethnographic exhibition of the savage tribal Austrian and Prussian warriors from the 1866 battle of Königgrätz, digging up traumatic memories from the past to let us know we are still far from the decolonial future we dream of. The installation is combined with drawings based on the artist’s 2023 visit to the battlefield of Hlobane, South Africa, further reminding viewers that all Empires, both then and now, like cabbages in the sun, fade and rot.
At the heart of his work is the concept of the Western tribal wars. By framing modern history in premodern terms, Gilbert portrays modern nations and empires as marauding European tribes, wreaking havoc across the world, through military and capital ventures.
Gilbert’s unique approach to historical representation creates gems such as the Alamo being struck by a drone and napalmed, or John Wayne and Michael Caine being portrayed as Defenders of Western Civilization.
