" (Tropico - Vegetal) was grandly exhibited this summer at Palais de Tokyo Contemporary Art Center from June 9 to August 27, 2006. It featured seven artists: Jennifer Allora, Guillermo Calzadilla, and Sergio Vega from South America; and Henrik Hakansson, Gerda Steiner, Jorg Lenzlinger, and Salla Tykka from Nordic countries. Five distinct solo exhibitions presented imaginative explorations of tropical climate plants by artists from opposite ends of the globe (the Arctic and Antarctic).
Artists from South America, near the Amazon rainforest, conveyed the passion and vitality of the tropical climate in their works. In contrast, artists from Northern Europe (Finland and Denmark), filled with longing for the tropics and poetic associations, produced more restrained and cold works. Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla's "Land Mark" installation and photographs attempted to establish their territory. Sergio Vega's "Crocodile Fantasy" explored contemporary cultural issues through a game-like imagination of lost paradise myths and colonial history echoes. Henrik Hakansson's plant (orchid) installation and video art, titled "Finding the Forest Through Wood," Gerda Steiner and Jorg Lenzlinger's video installation "Primitive Cave on the Forest of Civilized Thought," and Salla Tykka's video art "Zoo."
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