Artist: Margherita Raso
Exhibition title: Canal
Venue: Bible, New York, US
Date: November 4 – December 2, 2018
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Bible, New York
Note: List of works can be found here
A certain kind of beauty resides in the ability of some objects to initiate a reflexive consideration of our perceptual experience. These objects stimulate the awareness of our physical and sensory capacity. In the reconciliation with our limits, we suddenly become conscious of our body’s perimeter.
Another type of beauty derives from the sudden encounter of two bodies in the middle ground. In the acts of their precarious coexistence, they generate a choreography on the threshold between attraction and resistance. This dialectic movement is the unresolved blend of originality and repetition. It constitutes the invention of a language of gestural repertoire whose traces can be registered and fixed. All at once, the mnemonic image of this encounter seems to come to rest.
Trapped in the steady passivity of its sleep, the image, once horizontal, is now framed in its uplifting. In this renewed condition of exposed vulnerability, a request of attention is formulated. The voyeuristic gaze is allowed; indeed, it is claimed. The beholder inserts itself between the two bodies – within the invisible canal in which the flux of energy produced in their encounter generates.
The fabric, like skin, reveals its organic nature. Exposed at the space’s center of gravity, it assumes an architectural dimension. Hence, the figures become isolated in the attempt to free themselves from representation. As the woven drawing and the viewer define their physical relationship, the intimacy of the depicted moment is offered to the public. The surrounding darkness is the encounter’s safe harbor.
Viola Angiolini and Massimo Vaschetto
