Ben Hirschkoff

The Sky Is Not Falling

May 1 – June 1, 2008

The Sky Is Not Falling explores the use of metaphor and self-projection in the perception of nature as a symbolic landscape and resource. Resembling theatrical props and signage, flat, archetypal forms are used to represent an oversimplified perspective of nature. The palpable use of salvaged industrial building materials, serve to emphasize the prefabricated prop metaphor while signifying perception limited by these contrived and expedient, man-made symbols. Sky, cloud, earth: the nuts and bolts of our perceived environment. By presenting imagery that is at once familiar and superficial, I hope to imply a potentially contradictory narrative and in this way encourage the viewer to question the presumptions of symbolic language and how it forms our understanding of the world around us.

The Sky Is Not Falling pairs immobilizing pessimism with blind optimism, solving the problem of a falling sky with a field of iron bars. The iron bars refer to the consequence of securing the sky from falling, and the consequence of security in general, but also the absurdity of simple overkill solutions to complex perceived problems.