Premiering tomorrow: Amie Siegel, ‘Asterisms’ (2021) at 34th São Paulo Bienal

Amie Siegel’s expansive new work ‘Asterisms’ explores geological and social displacement processes on a planetary scale, focusing on the specific context of the United Arab Emirates. Siegel leads us through the process of constructing artificial islands in Dubai; through migrant labor camps that supply manual work for gold factories and oil recovery; through the surreal landscape of a royal palace where Arabian horses are bred and trained for show; through an abandoned village almost completely submerged by the desert sand... Each of these segments unfolds in a different cinematic aspect ratio and is projected onto a shape that floats between a wall and a sculpture. Derived from the superposition of the various projection formats, the shape resembles a stylized star, or asterism – an informal group of stars and the lines used to mentally connect them, whose form we can identify in the night sky, if we look hard enough.

Siegel’s continuous slide projection ‘Surrogates’ (2016) will also be shown as part of the Bienal. The relationship between the female body, the copy and its sculptural context is evoked in a dialogue between projected image and pedestal, as images of rupture and repair on the bodies of classical sculpture in the Naples National Archaeological Museum emerge and disappear in turn.

Exhibition dates: 4 September - 5 December 2021