JOHN ROLOFF ::::

Felsic/Mafic/Carbonate Facies is a constantly evolving assemblage of conceptual studies and transformations for new projects as well as meditations on existing works. This series is characterized by strategies employing inversions, intrusions, displacements, assemblages, and extended analogies/metaphors, often in geological parlance, of existing, often predictable, ecological beliefs and systems in order to disrupt, recast, and extrapolate their epistemological, ontological, and associative potential. A prime emphasis in this and related studies is the identification of the Anthropocene, the current geologic time period of human agency and natural force, as ultimately indistinguishable from any other natural phenomena. For example, architecture and the built environment are seen in this context as phenomenological, geomorphic, and lithological variants of geologic structures and processes. In We Remember the Sun, recent projects, site studies, and proposals of Felsic/Mafic/Carbonate Facies were selected to give a sense of the range of this study.

Roloff’s work responds to the geographic conditions of test sites, exploring their environmental possibilities through drawing, sculpture, and installation. He works conceptually with site, process, and natural systems to investigate geological and natural phenomena. His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Berkeley Art Museum; SFMOMA; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC; Photoscene in Cologne (Germany); and the Venice Architectural and Art Biennales. He has received three visual arts fellowships from the NEA, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and a California Arts Council grant for visual artists. Roloff is chair of the Sculpture department and associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at SFAI. www.johnroloff.com