Notes on Decomposition

Notes on Decomposition is a series of large-scale drawings that attempt to map our current state of cultural disenchantment through a collection of objects bought, sold and sequestered from 1991 to the present – objects that embody specific moments of political and economic collapse over the past twenty years, to become an inventory of neoliberal fantasy through decorative things and an atlas to the lives of specific individuals and institutions responsible for this ongoing crises.

The title is from Precis a Decomposition, the Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran’s collection of aphoristic essays dealing with the politics and history of Europe at the interregnal period between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War. His reflections on the collective inability to remember the failures of the past and the corruptive nature of ideology seem relevant to this particular moment of frustration and to the narratives embedded within the objects.

The twelve objects in each of the drawings are appropriated from auctions held from 1991 to 2015 – from the auction of Georgian and Regency era silverware sequestered from Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos in 1991, the 2010 sale of the Lehman Brothers collection to the first Christie’s auction in mainland China in 2013 and the 2015 auction of Margaret Thatcher’s personal effects, following her death.The drawings and accompanying wall text follow the path of these auctions, bringing together a concentrated site to understand the mythologies, domestic lives, laundering practices and representations behind these artefacts.