Meditating upon the flame as a figure of excess, containment, and renewal for our warming planet, Controlled Burn documents Julian Charrière's solo exhibition curated by Dehlia Hannah and Nadim Samman at the Langen Foundation in Neuss, Germany, from September 2022 to August 2023. Deepening Charrière's reflections upon ideas of nature and our place therein, both the book and the exhibition interrogate the dark vitality of materials used for fuel: coal, petroleum, palm oil, and sunshine. Taking us back in time and deep underground, Charrière's speculative visions range over fossilized life-worlds and future atmospheres saturated by the burnt residues of modernity's excess.
Julian Charrière (born 1987 in Morges, Switzerland) is a French-Swiss artist living and working in Berlin. He
studied at ECAV (École cantonale d'art du Valais) and at the Institut für Raumexperimente in Berlin, under the guidance of Olafur Eliasson.
Charrière explores ideas of nature and its transformation over deep ecological as well as human historical time. Addressing pressing matters of ecological concern, his work frequently stems from fieldwork in remote locations with acute geophysical identities, such as volcanoes, ice fields, oil palm plantations, and undersea and radioactive sites. An ongoing reflection upon the mythos and politics of exploration in a globalized age is central to his practice. Working across media and conceptual paradigms, Charrière frequently collaborates with composers, scientists, engineers, art historians, and philosophers. His work often provokes, inviting critical reflection upon cultural traditions of perceiving, representing, and engaging with the natural world.
