The Mahogany Pavilion (Mobile Architecture nº 1)
2004
2004
Upside-down Loch Long sailboat, built in 1963 by Boags Boat Yard in Largs (this being #73), Scotland, using South American mahogany
Exhibited for the first time in the 26th São Paulo Bienal (2004), this work reveals an important element of Simon Starling’s work: the boat. Here, the mahogany piece is placed upside down and suspended by its own mast. Placed in the middle of the tropical garden, right next to a mahogany species, the work suggests a tree as much as a shelter. In it, the wood used in the Scotland-made sailboat comes back to its place of origin: Latin America.
By approaching the flow of exportation of natural resources (from America to Europe), the artist proposes another inversion, this time of geopolitical nature.