Tomi Ungerer
Spazio recommends: Tomi Ungerer – Incognito
Spazio recommends: Gabriel Sierra – Before Present
Gabriel
Sierra’s show at the Kunsthalle in Zürich – up until February 2nd – is a very
interesting reflection about space and time. The exhibition has an ouverture, three acts,
and a finale. Ouverture and finale – How
to forget that the moon light comes from the sun – are constituted by the
same light intentionally placed at the height of the visitors’ eyes to erase
the images on the retina before entering and after leaving the exhibition.
Also the
three acts are almost identical. One room after the other, we find the same
pieces. Their titles are reveling of the artist’s intention to address the way our bodies relate to interior spaces and the objects that have been placed within them.
Gabriel Sierra, Structures of transition (Détournement), photo Mariana Siracusa
We
access each gallery through a Structure
for transition (Détournement), an object that functions as brackets in a
text. It encourages the visitor to pay attention to what happens when we cross
from one big gallery to another, through a passageway that has a different
scale, material, and color.
Gabriel Sierra, Collision of views, photo Thomas Strub
Gabriel Sierra, Collision of views, photo Mariana Siracusa
Collision of views are wall constructions that regulate the view
to and from the adjacent room. They are not placed at eye level so that the visitor would either have to stand on the toes or bend down in order to peek on what is going on in the other gallery.
In Learning to disappear two narrow doors give access to a small room painted brown and placed 10 cm above ground. These claustrophobic spaces have no windows and still smell of paint which does not make for a space where you want to stay very long. But they are in perfect contrast to the large and well lit main galleries.
Gabriel Sierra, Learning to disappear, photo Thomas Strub
Gabriel Sierra, Versions of an event, photo Thomas Strub
Check also the conversation between Gabriel Sierra and Megan Sullivan at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago.
Ou l’Orient commence
Tout
l'histoire de l'antiquité correspond sans doute à un jeu alterné de marées,
s'avançant et reculant, portant la frontière de l'Orient et de l'Occident,
tantôt plus loin vers l'Ouest et tantôt plus loin du côté de l'Asie. Marathon
fut, un jour, le front de l'Occident en état de défense. Avec Alexandre le
Grand, toute l'Asie occidentale fut hellénisée et la limite se déplaça, pour
quelque temps, de quelques deux mille kilomètres vers l'Est. Venant de
l'Extrême-Orient après avoir fait le tour du monde, avec quelle émotion, je me
rappelle avoir traversé l'Hindus! Alexandre était venu jusque-là: je reprenais
contact, symboliquement du moins, avec cette ligne extrême où la vague grecque,
ayant atteint et même dépassé la force d'expansion qui était en elle, était
venue mourir, épuisée.
Cette
frontière, il n'était pas question de la maintenir. Rome, plus tard, fixa et
consolida son système de défense, aux bords du désert, non loin du versant
géographique dont nous parlions tout à l'heure. Mais l'Islam, à son tour,
orientalisa toute un section de la Méditerranée, et cette fois c'était l'Occident
qui reculait: point n'est besoin d'un regard pénétrant pour déceler, même à
Athènes, je ne sais quelle présence latente de l'Orient...
Il me semble
que les lieux qui ont été disputés, au cours des siècles, entre des
civilisations adverses, s'enrichissent de cette lutte, se chargent de poésie. Quelle
excitation, pour l'esprit et la sensibilité, que la recherche de ces frontières.
André
Siegfried. "Ou l'Orient commence." Verve, No. 3 (June, 1938).
Check out the wonderful collection of Arabic, Turkish and Persian manuscripts digitized by the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
VERVE – Revue artistique et littéraire
Between
1937 and 1960 Tériade, aka Stratis Eleftheriades, published the 26 incomparable
issues of VERVE – Revue artistique et
littéraire. His intention was to present all the arts and provide evidence
of artists’ participation to the essential events of their time. Reproductions
were executed with the most appropriate technology so that the images could still
be considered originals.
Let me focus for now on the first five issues and pick a few of my favourites. From the first one I certainly choose the article on hair, silent trace of a hidden nature. It is signed G. B. that I assume stands for Georges Batailles. Women with their hair down: there is hardly anything more erotic.
From the
second one I choose the magnificent interpretations of the Apocalypse
reproduced from Middle Ages manuscripts preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale
de France. Red, blue, yellow, green. Fire, sky, water, earth, beasts. They all
compose a great enigma.
The thirds
issue is devoted to the Orient and I will expand on this one in my next post.
From the
forth one I would like to point out a recurring feature of Verve. In the double page photography
often faces painting: they reinforce each other letting analogies and affinities appear more clearly.
The fifth
issue is devoted to the human figure
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