The Greek philosopher Aristotle attributed the origin of art to our affinity for imitation. Within this, he suggests that art imitates and even perfects nature in his assertion that “art completes what nature cannot bring to finish.” He arrived at this claim by making some key observations in differentiating between nature and art. In the natural world, for instance, things occur on the basis of an internal principle of motion and change. Here, the growth and development of plant and animal life is hard-wired in the instinctual responses and genetic codes of its species. Artistic production, on the other hand, requires an external driving force, one that’s grounded in reason as well as intent in its direction and aim.
Into the Wild draws upon the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia’s permanent collection in bringing together an eclectic selection of works that delve into this conversation. The exhibition includes photography, video and sculpture by Canadian artists David Askevold, Edward Burtynsky, Holly King and Germaine Koh, among others. Through varying forms of production, the artists included in the exhibition (re)imagine the natural world in giving us, in Aristotle’s words, “knowledge of nature's unrealized ends.”
David Diviney
Curator of Programs