Keeping on top of all things fungal, we've installed Michel Blazy's "Mur de Double Concentré de Tomate" in the Mediamatic bank for the Paddestoelen Paradijs exhibition.
Preferring a more 'homemade' approach to art and resisting the notion of a fully complete work of art, Michel Blazy allows materials to live their own lives and metamorphose over time. What interests him are the ways materials change and he applies himself to designing environments that are hospitable and conducive to the development of his organisms. He relinquishes control over his work, allowing the natural processes to come through, privileging seeing over knowing.
In "Mur de Double Concentré de Tomate", a large wall of the Mediamatic bank has been plastered with tomato paste, covered with plastic, and left to its own devices. After a week the plastic covering is removed, revealing the natural molding processes that the tomato paste has taken. The sheer size of the wall and its prominence inside the Mediamatic Bank almost forces the visitors to come in contact with the processes of decay. Placing two iterations of fungus parallel to one another, the mushrooms growing in the exhibition space (mushrooms being the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus) and the mold growing on the tomato wall (mold being a specific type of fungus), creates a landscape of the processes of growth and decomposition.
