Dan Rees at Tanya Leighton

Artist: Dan Rees

Exhibition title: Ruins of the Cambrian Age

Venue: Tanya Leighton, Berlin, Germany

Date: November 25, 2016 – January 21, 2017

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Tanya Leighton

‘Around 500 million years ago the Cambrian explosion gave birth to life on earth as we know it. The Cambrian period was followed by the Ordovician and then the Silurian. The time period takes its name from the Silures, an ancient Celtic tribe from Britain’s mountainous regions. These particular mountains were formed during the Caledonian Collision, which caused the closing of the Lapetus Ocean, bringing Avalonia and Laurentia together to form a large equatorial continent called Euramerica. Once as large as the Himalayas, the mountains are now in permanent retreat; water percolating through the cracks, shaping and softening their contours.

Beneath the Silures’ feet the Carboniferous swamps, mud, sediment and organic matter, compressed over millions of years, turned into high quality anthracite coal. This valuable dark artery runs serpentine from Spain under the Bay of Biscay to Britain and across the Atlantic to Pennsylvania. The subterranean horizontal passage of solidified carbon sludge is an ominous harbinger of the tumultuous binds that link the peoples and the social institutions born out of its exploitation.

On the golden sands of Langland Bay, 2,500 years ago… a Silurian child is building sand castles and knocking them down.’ -Dan Rees

Dan Rees lives and works in London and Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include Nomas Foundation, Rome; MOSTYN, Wales; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; Goss Michael Foundation, Dallas. His work has been featured in recent group exhibitions at GAMeC, Bergamo; Budafabriek, Kortrijk, Belgium; Fellbach Small Sculpture Triennial; Casa do Povo, São Paulo. This year saw the publication of a new monograph of his work by Mousse, containing essays by Dieter Roelstraete, Saim Demircan and Ben Gregory.