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Julius von Bismarck Zea Mays, 2024
Pressed and dried plant and grasshopper, mounted on stainless steel
269 x 70 cm
The unique work was made by pressing a plant into almost two-dimensional form. In this case, it is Zea Mays, commonly known as corn. A large grasshopper was pressed together with the plant, as if sitting on one of the leaves. A 50-ton hydraulic press and press oven is employed to achieve the flatness before the material is attached to a thin stainless-steel plate. The result is a hybrid existing at once in different registers of organic (living) and inorganic (dead) materials.
Originally a grain cultivated by Mesoamerican cultures, Zea Mays, generally known as Maize or more commonly as Corn in English, is inextricably bound with the history of food, trade and colonialism in the Americas, as well as in Western Europe and the world.
As a plant that is cultivated on a massive scale, often in monocultures where biodiversity is destroyed, the work alludes to changes to the global ecology wrought by humanity. The grasshopper, which is generally considered a pest by producers of corn, and described as one of the plagues in the Christian bible, is in fact a sign of life. Bismarck's work poses the question whether it isn't humanity that has acted in a manner similar to such locust, stripping the planet of diversity and endangering its life.