Artists: Natsuko Uchino and Magni Moss
Exhibition title: CAMPOS
Venue: CIBRIÁN, San Sebastian, Spain
Date: July 14 – September 9, 2023
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and CIBRIÁN, San Sebastian
Cibrián is thrilled to present CAMPOS, a duo exhibition by Natsuko Uchino and Magni Moss in which they show individual and four handed works.
A lot is going on in the campos (fields). Earthworms feed, move and mix their waste with the soil in a moist, microbe-rich environment. They dig galleries that bring oxygen, drain water and create space for plant roots. The global practices of the agricultural industry openly destroy the soils. French police shoot environmentalists from Les soulèvements de la terre. And so on and so forth.
Let’s face it, the campos are complex places where the most simple organic matter meets politics. But for the few who really care about those places, one rule seems to prevail: The simpler, the better. This is at least what Masanobu Fukuoka cried out in his essay The one Straw Revolution, in which he challenges the foundations of the agri-food industry and proposes agricultural solutions that imply a minimal human intervention. Starting with the use of clay seed balls.
This earthy simplicity is celebrated in the work of Natsuko Uchino and Magni Moss. Natsuko Uchino (b. 1983, Japan) uses a wide variety of media and materials such as ceramics, textiles, microorganisms, and performance, drawing inspiration from agrarian systems. Uchino summons a great variety of collaborators throughout her work. For CAMPOS the artist shows, among others, a series of felts made from a wool provided by Eletegia, a two-persons workshop in Sare. Eletegia have revitalized the production of wool from Manex ewes, an increasingly rare breed found exclusively in the Basque Country. Here, Uchino’s work is an element of cohesion in the local social and cultural fabric.
Magni Moss (b. 1982, Sweden) paints. From the tedious preparation of the canvas to the subtle movements of lines and colors, his work unfolds through a multitude of gestures. Everything acts on the same level of importance. Moss’s paintings insert in a set of references but are also influenced by their geographical surroundings. Whether he is working in the Gässemala area in Sweden, where he lives and works, or at Uchino’s house in the south of France. Or elsewhere.
Moss navigates between condensed moments of attention and openness. His knowledge of painterly materials is astonishing, making an experimental, chemistry-like use of it. These materials are the tools and language, which manifests in various forms such as large colored masses, abstract patterns, twists, dots or simply a covered surface.
CAMPOS is a place of gathering and collective thinking, where Natsuko Uchino and Magni Moss invite the viewers to shift their attention toward the living things, constantly involved in their practices. It is also an homage to their former gallery, the Last Resort Gallery in Copenhagen. The collaboration between the two artists has been strengthened with the support of Peter Amby (1982 – 2022) their former gallerist. Cibrián is honoured to keep this conversation open.
Natsuko Uchino and Magni Moss, through their collaborative and individual works, allow space for a number of elements to catalyze and react. The result, akin Fukuoka’s clay seed balls, leads to a flourishing body of works.
