Michael Wang: Human Nature

Abstract

In Human Nature, artist Michael Wang will discuss the appropriation of nature through technology, extractive practices, and even care. Wang is most interested in sites where natural and technological systems join. He will share works that address the natural origins of modern energy, complicate conversations around extinction and conservation, and explore emerging relationships between the planetary and the cosmic. He will also outline some of the precepts from his Manifesto of Photosynthesism — a call for a new aesthetics of the carbon negative.

Biography

Michael Wang uses systems that operate at both regional and planetary scales as media for art, addressing climate, ecology, extraction, and capital. His works include Extinct in the Wild, a project that engages species that no longer exist in nature but persist under human care; 10000 li, 100 billion kilowatt-hours, a work that harnessed Shanghai's hydropower-fueled electric grid to create a frozen facsimile of the glaciers at the origin of the Yangtze river; First Forest, a living replica of a Carboniferous forest installed in a disused coal-gas plant; and Carbon Copies, an exhibition linking the production of artworks to the release of greenhouse gases — envisioning all artists as "air artists."

Wang's work was the subject of solo exhibitions at Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai (2022), LMCC's Arts Center at Governors Island, New York (curated by Swiss Institute, 2019), and the Fondazione Prada, Milan (2017). His work has also been included in Elevation 1049 in Gstaad (2023), the 13th Shanghai Biennale (2021), Manifesta 12 in Palermo (2018), and the XX Bienal de Arquitectura y Urbanismo in Valparaíso (2017). His work has been discussed in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Artforum, Art in America, The Architect's Newspaper, and other publications. In 2017, he was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant.