Mick Meilahn’s Primordial Shift

PRIMORDIAL SHIFT is a quintessential example of Meilahn’s later installations.  It is about change . . . that is, the broad arc of change from early domestication of corn by indigenous peoples in the area of what is now southern Mexico to genetic engineering induced by science in the 20th Century; namely the paradigm shift which enabled scientists to unravel genetic code of organisms contained in DNA; and the modification and commodification of plants and animals and implications for consumers.

PRIMORDIAL SHIFT consists of 32 hand-blown glass ears of corn averaging 4’ high suspended on stalks of cord with leaves of cast bronze, and a backdrop of video projected to create an illusion of gentle swaying in the breeze. The dimensions of the installation vary depending upon available space.  To replicate a field of corn, best might be a square space of approximately 30’x30’ hung from a 16′ ceiling, surrounded by video of corn fields on Meilahn’s own family farm projected in the round on gallery walls, and nestled in surround-sound audio which includes the chirping of birds and rustling of leaves.

PRIMORDIAL SHIFT is, of course, a work of art.  But underlying the artist’s aesthetic is an agnostic, if not ambivalent philosophy concerning agronomy, in other words, crop science, and the application of that science by horticulturists to plant production, for the enhancement and improvement of nature for human and animal life: 

“With today’s sophisticated technology and global positioning, a 24-row corn planter can plant 500 acres a day with laser accuracy, 35,000 plants per acre with placement exactly 6” apart, and 1¾ “deep.  The instant the seed hits the ground, germination begins. That germination is as primal as it gets. Its everywhere! Just look. The shift part is engineered; with results that are all so convenient.  Is this shift good?  You decide.”, says Mick Meilahn.

In that sense, PRIMORDIAL SHIFT along with most of Meilahn’s other installations (the most overt exception being FIELD OF MINES), are not agents for or of change, but rather, artworks which illuminate the pros and cons of genetic modification.

Mick (Michael) Meilahn (b. 1946) grew up on a family farm near Pickett, in Central Wisconsin.  After graduating in 1964 from high school in Ripon where he excelled in art, he entered the University of Wisconsin-River Falls to study agriculture. He subsequently switched his major to art, after he realized agri-business was not his passion. At UW-River Falls he took his first course in glass, and in 1966 he started blowing glass, this at the same time that Harvey Littleton was running the studio glass program at UW-Madison that he made famous by graduating a slew of glass evangelists, the most famous of which would be Dale Chihuly.  As an undergraduate, Mick Meilahn spent a Quarter abroad working with glass legend, Erwin Eisch in Frauenau, Germany (on the Bavaria/Czech border, an area with a rich tradition of glass making).  After graduation in 1971, he spent a year in Bolivia as an idealistic Peace Corp volunteer intent on helping people in South America by sharing knowledge he’d learned from farming.  After that he enrolled at Illinois State University, Normal, where Joel Philip Myers had begun a glass program, and earned his Masters degree in art. 

Ultimately, though, Meilahn’s roots drew him back to his family’s farm in 1975 where he and his wife, Jane, raised their children and where he alternately operated the family farm and the hot glass studio he built.  

In time, Meilahn’s passion for art and farming became one-in-the-same as a form of creative expression.  Since 1996, when he turned 50 and began planting genetic seed, Meilahn’s artwork has focused on genetic modification, which has symbiotically shaped his life and work, both as an artist and a famer. His installations afford viewers the opportunity to view and contemplate the production of corn, from the dual perspective of an artist who knows the subject from life.  For the past 15 years or so, this convergence has been the basis for a number of important works.  

Meilahn’s choice of corn as an icon is not only relevant to The Midwest where he has roots, but also to the nation and beyond.  The nation’s (and the world’s for that matter) reliance on corn production is broad.  But The Upper Midwest is particularly immersed in corn production.  In the U.S. the top ranking corn producing states in descending order of production are: 1. Iowa, 2. Illinois, 3. Nebraska, 4. Minnesota, 5. Indiana, 6. South Dakota, 7. Kansas, 8. Wisconsin, 9. Missouri, 10. Ohio.  In 2016, the nation’s top twenty states produced over 100 million bushels of corn, 2 billion of which were produced in Iowa and Illinois (source, NASS/USDA).  Whereas corn has personal meaning and value for Mick Meilahn, corn is broadly iconic these days in terms of food, agribusiness, and culture.