The sun and the moon serve as the conceptual framework for Rachel Rose‘s latest solo exhibition, Good Morning Midnight. Housed at GL Strand in Copenhagen, the American visual artist, known for her kaleidoscopic films, paintings, and sculptures that contemplate themes of mortality and the way in which changing landscapes shape belief systems, will showcase two films that revolve around the passage of time and humanity’s relationship with nature.
In the first film, Enclosure (2019), Rose sets the scene to 17th century England, in which a group of mischievous travelers scourge farmland from villagers, slaughtering their livestock in the process, while a black orb replaces the sun as “a symbol of the future,” according to the artist. The film alludes to the Enclosure Act, ratified around the 1750s, in which communal farming land was seized for privatization, along with the overarching belief in mysticism as a dictating force for natural phenomena. “I’m looking at this moment of land destruction, violence, and privatization in which the forest, the field, the countryside is being reshaped,” said Rose in a statement. This reshaping, in both the film and in history, had a direct effect on the customs and way of life of its residents.
Making its European debut, Rose’s latest film The Last Day (2023), brings the focus to a childhood bedroom, where the sun’s cycle maps out the development of the world, from sunrise to sunset and back again. Created by juxtaposing 800 medium-format photographs, the ethereal piece was inspired by a rather tragic event, in which a family friend of the filmmaker passed away. As both of Rose’s two children are two young, one of her daughters asked, “What happen’s on the last day?” The bedroom was aptly used as the central setting in the film, where dreams, aspirations, and fears collide in a sublime meditation on mortality.
“When you’re a parent, you’re in this continually empathetic state,” noted Rose. “You’re always seeing things from their perspective, your perspective, and then there’s this other perspective that’s maybe more intuitive, or developmental, or primordial.” Complementing the films are a series of drawings, as well as glass and rock sculptures that mirror the experience of Rose’s children.
Good Morning Midnight is currently on view at GL Strand in Copenhagen until October 22.
For more on art, Peter Saul will present his latest series of paintings at Venus Over Manhattan.
GL Strand
Gammel Strand 48
1202 København, Denmark
