DE MAGNETE

at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery from 23 August - 14 September.

Gallery hours: Mon - Fri 08:30 - 16:30.

The Earth's magnetic field strength was measured by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1835 and has been repeatedly measured since then, showing a relative decay of about 10% over the last 150 years.

It is a supreme irony that we live in a contemporary scenario in which global culture, predicated on the notion of progress, is in fact, entirely based on the relentless destruction of nature. McInnes’ solo exhibition de Magnete interrogates the contradictions inherent in present-day human thought and behaviour, especially with respect to the disconnect between our material aspirations and their inevitable effect on our planet and ultimate future.

Key areas of interest relate to the forces of attraction and repulsion and, secondarily, to the speed at which we hurtle resolutely on our chosen trajectory into an uncertain future. McInnes explores the concept of ‘anomie’ – a term referring to the loss of personal or societal norms of behaviour. The word was popularised by French sociologist Emile Durkheim in his influential book Suicide (1897). Durkheim was of the opinion that anomie arises as a result of a mismatch between personal or group standards and wider social standards, or from a lack of a social ethic, which acts to produce moral deregulation and an absence of legitimate aspirations.

A leit motif of the effect exerted by the magnetic field runs through the work speaking to the concepts of the loss of our societal moral compass and to the binary opposing forces to which we are subjected: nature on nature; man on nature; man on man, and inevitably, nature on man.