Artists

Carl Cheng

Press release

_Nature Never Loses_ surveys six decades of the prescient, genre-defying work of artist Carl Cheng (b. 1942, San Francisco; lives and works in Santa Monica). Having studied both fine art and industrial design, Cheng first developed his art practice in Southern California in the 1960s, amid political unrest, an interdisciplinary art scene, a booming post-war aerospace industry, and rapid development of the landscape. His ever-evolving body of work, incorporating a variety of materials and media, engages with environmental change, the relevance of art institutions to their publics, and the role of technology in society—topics with urgent contemporary relevance. Originally recognized for his photographic sculptures, his inventive lexicon includes _Art Tools_ employed in the production of ephemeral artworks, _Nature Machines_ that anticipate an artificial world shaped by humans, and extra-institutional interventions intended to reach broad audiences. Throughout, Cheng has consistently probed questions of natural agency and the extractive impact of humans on their environment, summed up in his frequent declarations, at once humorous, foreboding, and hopeful that 'nature never loses', 'nature always wins', and 'nature is everything.'