Potemkin
wood, plywood, paint, render, scrim, varnish, wax
3.25m x 1.86m x 62cm, 2021
Potemkin has been erected upon the foundation stones of a barn at the Sidney Nolan Trust that was lost to fire in the 1960s. The missing building has been temporarily replaced by a façade that has been constructed to appear precarious, at an angle that references the buildings damaged in a 2013 monsoon flood at the US military National Training Center at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert, California.
The term ‘Potemkin’, which derives from the fake portable village built by Grigori Potemkin to deceive Empress Catherine II during her journey to Crimea in 1787, is used to refer to a literal or figurative construction that gives the illusion of prosperity and stability.
