17.09.2024 – 17.10.2024
The camping trips in his youth were formative experiences for Andrew Phelps. ‘An experience in the wilderness had a lot to do with adventure, with challenge, fear and anxiety,’ he describes the experiences he had in Arizona. When Phelps came to Salzburg in 1990, he learnt how strongly the concept of wilderness in Europe had been filtered through centuries of history and tradition, and how far removed the local camping culture is from an unpredictable and direct exchange with nature. In search of the ‘true wilderness’, he spent four summers on campsites in the Alps for Nature De Luxe (2004) and experienced a world of comfort, predictability and the attempt to find a home away from home. Wilderness is avoided here at all costs. In Overland (2017), he once again shows the artificiality of this calculated experience of nature and portrays Alpine adventure tourism, which offers a fine balance of adrenaline rush and safety. Maintaining a critical distance, Phelps explores social phenomena in his works, questioning the authenticity of the superficial experience of nature in a world in which wilderness has become increasingly alien to us.
Andrew Phelps – Nature De-Luxe
17.09.2024 – 17.10.2024
off_gallery / raum
Griesgasse 31 / Griesgasse 26
8020 Graz
www.offgallery.at
