Sam Clague
25 March - 21 April
Under Heaven’s Heel is an eclectic survey of the oppressive economic and social practices of capitalism dating back over 500 years.
Featuring paintings and sculptures, Otautahi based artist Sam Clague muses on the origins of our global political landscape. He draws on historical events, artworks and symbols to consider how the age-old conflict between the powerful and the controlled remains vital and relevant today.
With a portfolio from all over Aotearoa, New Zealand and to Australia and Germany, Clague’s practice covers the mediums of painting, sculpture, installation, video, and sound, creating diverse and seemingly unconnected cultural and artistic references into a poetic template of signs and symbols.
In an essay for Art+Australia Online, Abbra Kotlarczyk writes:
“Clague’s works are elisions in the true sense of the word: as aporia, an irresolvable internal contradiction that gets to the heart of what it means to both reject and join forces with our turbid desires…”
Under Heaven’s Heel speaks to the binaries within social politics and the tension caused from power, classism and systemic oppression.
The work delves into 1514 Germany and The German Peasants War. Where capitalist systems are represented by a giant hand, in the front gallery, Clague’s paintings portray the 1514 working class as miniature, like figurines in the collection of a child. Almost to set them in a dreamscape or to soften the weight of the work, the figures are set against a pastel ombre. To evoke the chaos and grim reality of power and the impacts of capitalist greed, Clague displays an array of sculptures in the back gallery, some a direct reference to executioner’s tools.
Moreover, Under Heaven’s Heel investigates Albrecht Dürer’s (1525) plan for the Monument to the Vanquished Peasants, which presents a symbolic historical moment about which the exhibition is organized. The design for this monument appeared in Dürer’s Painter’s Manual, and depicts a monument constructed of the fruits of the peasant’s labor, stacked with mathematical precision, and crowned by the figure of a seated peasant with a sword protruding from his back (seen on the exhibition advertisement).
Under Heaven’s Heel is only one of many in a series of art explorations Clague has done in this topic over the past 6 years. Be sure to check out his website for more.
opens friday 24 march at 5:30pm
Under Heaven’s Heel is on until 21 april
artist’s talk
saturday 25 march at 1pm at Toi Poneke
For purchases please see reception or contact us at artscentre@wcc.govt.nz
