Exhibitions

MICHAEL WEBSTER: SONIC FICTIONS

Neue Welt / 507 Hagan St., Studio C April 4 - 26th (Reception: April 4 5:00pm - 8:00pm)

Michael Webster

Neue Welt is pleased to present Sonic Fictions by Michael Webster.

Sonic Fictions presents a landscape of exhaust pipes, hunting paraphernalia, and fragments of imperialist monuments. From these forms, sound emanates—recordings of insect infestations, ATV excursions, and foley from nature documentaries—coalescing into a multi-channel audio field augmented by the sculptures' metallic acoustics. Layers of cicada communication, diesel engines, and the churning of earth register as a low, persistent conflict across the landscape. Each sculpture exists in limbo between life and death, culminating in a natural history of the Plantationocene.

At the core of the installation is a plaster artist-proof bust of William Gorgas, sculpted by monument maker Bryant Baker. Gorgas is credited with accelerating the completion of the Panama Canal by eradicating mosquito vectors of yellow fever and malaria, and thereby securing U.S. control over the Panamanian isthmus and cementing its influence across the Americas. In this installation, the bust is coated in "bug glue" typically used to protect trees from invasive species, obscuring Gorgas’s likeness over time.

Michael Webster responds to the social organization of space through site-specific projects, sculpture, and lens-based media. His work is context-driven and materially attuned, investigating the effects of power on social geography with a focus on long-term participatory projects rooted in the southern United States. He has attended residencies at McColl Center, ChaNorth, Hambidge Center, Elsewhere Living Museum, and Penland School of Craft. He was the runner-up for the 2023 South Arts Southern Prize and was selected as the South Carolina State Fellow.

Webster’s solo exhibitions include Locust Projects (Miami, FL), LIVLAB at Western Carolina University (Sylva, NC), and Columbia College (Columbia, SC). He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from East Carolina University and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Currently, he is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid GVL and an Associate Professor at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.