Gravity and fragility
Enrique Juncosa

Richard Learoyd
Whale, Pacífica [Ballena Pacífica], 2015
© Courtesy of the artist and Fraenkel Gallery
The town of Pacífica, very close to San Francisco, is famous for always being shrouded in fog, and its beaches are very popular with surfers. In California it is common to spot all kinds of different cetaceans, depending on the season, such as the grey whales that migrate from Alaska to Mexico every year, as well as orcas, humpbacks and giant blue whales, among others. Nobody knows the exact reason for the stranding of whales, although it is believed that it may be related to the disorienting effect of the use of sonar in naval exercises. Learoyd’s whale, at first glance, appears as a beautiful image of sumptuous textures, like a wooded hill in a landscape or the rocky sediment of a craggy escarpment. It also reminds us of certain sculptures of the 1960s and 1970s by artists such as Lynda Benglis and Barry Flanagan, who created sculptural volumes based on the physical characteristics of their materials, such as paint and sand, by simple processes such as pouring them directly onto the ground to create piles of matter. When we realize that what we are actually looking at is a dead whale, the meaning of the image becomes much more complex than a simple technical exercise. This is an image of both the power of gravity, which crushes the inert whale’s body into the sand, and the fragility and vulnerability of its body and its life, something that not even the most powerful of animals can escape. These monumental mammals have also become the emblem of the fight against climate change and environmental damage, which might be responsible for the emergence of these new and devastating diseases we are currently experiencing.
Enrique Juncosa, is a writer, exhibition curator, and art critic. He was the director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin from 2003 to 2011. He was also the deputy director of the IVAM in Valencia and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid.