Sebastian Boyle, the son (now in his 40s), claims there is no political motive behind their work ("We want to see things for themselves," he says in an interview in the catalog). Rather, he says, they are simply concerned with "whether it is possible to give an account of even a small section of reality and say in any meaningful way that it is accurate."
Their work feels poignant, then, in a show concerned with whether what we like to call "nature" can ever really be known.
This question is asked in a different, though equally provocative way, by Vaughn Bell, who hangs little greenhouses (she calls them "Personal Biospheres") from the ceiling and invites you to enter them by poking your head up through a hole in their floors. Once inside, you find yourself in a humid little environment that resembles aspects of the Berkshire countryside outside.
The exercise is mischievous and a little silly on one level. But it does two things: It makes us acutely conscious of the climate-controlled sterility of the gallery setting, its "unnaturalness." And it gently undoes some of the romanticism we habitually project onto all things green. Instead of admiring nature at a safe remove, we are thrust into it at nose level, and reminded of how smelly and unpleasant it can be.
There were many other works I liked, but none more than Mary Temple's brilliant illusion of shadows cast onto an interior wall - not by tricks of light, but by the painstaking application of latex and wood stain onto the gallery floor and walls. The work, called "Northeast Corner, Southwest Light," is so subtle that you may not notice it at first. But once you do, it's hard to suppress a sense of wonder. "I want a whole room of those," I heard someone say, and I immediately thought, "Me, too!"
But the work is more than just a neat trick. It speaks volumes about our alienation from nature, suggesting a relationship to reality no more secure than that of the prisoners chained to Plato's cave. Along with that, inevitably, comes a pessimism about our ability to protect nature, even as it enchants us.
