Global Debris by Johanna Poethig

Artist: Johanna Poethig

Title: Global Debris 

Edition: Archival pigment print on 100% recycled Sugar Paper, from an edition of 30

Size: 24x16 inches (60.96 x 40.64 cm)

Markings: Hand signed and numbered with Sugar Press chop mark

Date: 2018

33% of all proceeds will be donated to The When She Rises  exhibition at Sparc.

In studio pick up and viewing are available by appointment.  More info Here.

My current body of work considers ancient and current practices of prediction, divination and chance operations methodologies. Written and improvised commentary interpret personal, political, social and mystical implications in the juxtaposition of selected cards. The cards are created using digital design, archival printing, assemblage, gold edging and final varnishes. Readings are performed in intimate settings and large installations with video projections. The original set, the High Stakes Divination Cards play with the powers of suggestion using resonance of image and text as a form of divination. The cards themselves draw on the dread and humor of daily life, the architecture of our social lives, the symbols and artifacts of culture, odd behaviors, pleasures and pains of the body, obsession with the tactics of empire, feminist theologies, eschatology and environmental meltdown. The vocabulary of images are based on my paintings, sculptures and photographs as well as randomly scavenged from multiple sources. They been exhibited internationally and used in performances at SOMArts in San Francisco, at the Harrison House in Joshua Tree, California including a reading done on Radio Free Joshua Tree. Most recently they were performed in the Philippines as part of Manila Transi(en)t for Project Glocal, an experimental, technology focused artist project in South East Asia.

Another set of cards, Random Ruminations, explores the ancient practice of cleromancy bringing it into the realm of absurdist thinking and drawing on the arts of political punditry. The Random Ruminations Oracle: Five Fins Commentaries, is used as a reference to interpret the “castings” of the card, object and text configurations. Punditry, an unlikely oracle, is the most common predictive practice of the current capitalist system with roots in ancient Babylon. I am fascinated by the unexpected overlap of the analytical and mystical arts of forcasting.