Category: BODIES AND SPACES

‘Art is more than meets the eye’, the folk saying goes, and I believe there might be some truth to that. Despite its fragility, related to its thingness, it acts as if it were space within a space, bigger on the inside, as if it is a portable black hole. It devours every-thing around it without consuming anything, transforming objects into time, creating cracks in the sameness of our days, letting us feel the futility of our everyday in the background of which we may encounter the richness of reality itself.

This ‘richness’ is a relative term, obviously, generally indicating something that is out of reach, a longing for things that are yet to come. Maybe, this is why there is another saying – ‘a man who has everything, has nothing at all’. To be rich, then, means to be able to appreciate a lack.

Perhaps, it is within this lack where the meeting between an artwork and the observer’s eye occurs. It is a distant gaze, although a loving one – a gift that is being gifted both ways, forming a relation. A bond, where the ones bonded cannot touch, but nevertheless constitute each other. Similar to how one imperceivably recognizes oneself through the reflection in another’s eye or like a memory of a glass, which refuses to be touched by lips.

So, what is ‘more’ within a meeting with an eye? What is this excess dwelling inside a lack? Artworks, so it seems, just like us, are their own doppelgangers: double, dual – a movement between the first and the third person in a sentence, perpetually seducing us to entangle them in language, while at the same time constantly evading an explicit definition. An object craving for a gaze, though evaporating as soon as we think we start recognizing it as familiar.

That is why exhibitions are peripatetic – more suitable for movement than observation. Move through the space, or better let the space move you and the path will bend accordingly to the steps you take. On your way, you will find a Station in Conversation lurking, waiting for the right moment, ready to catch the possibilities that are yet to be envisioned. Or a Researcher’s Outfit, inviting the curiosity of others to whisper alien questions in passing, leading you to a space of dreams and uncertainty, offering to cease control and give yourself up to the passage of time. This time becomes a space in Prototype of Dunes.

On the other side there are three Nameless surfaces which came from the past and by which you possibly once passed, reflecting your present gaze back at you in the form of a memory or a wish. You will also find a piece, which is Not Yet Titled, but suspended in a state of eternal becoming; a thing patiently waiting for its word, anticipating a sense of belonging. Walk some more to find a shoelace dangling from the ceiling – an object of the everyday, standing before you Today. And if sometimes time ceases to pass in this space, can there still be any News? Through the multitude of these ‘todays’, time reveals itself as a vehicle, a mode of travel, a rhythmical Exhition. Eventually, you will notice that you are not alone in your travels, with Friends’ Names delicately watching over, revealing nothing but the difference they profess. These appearances, as vivid as they may be, once touched will quickly melt away as if they were a kind of Sugar Entertainment – sweet to the eye, saturated for the tongue.

An exhibition is a kind of promise that cannot be delivered. It is untouchable, yet fragile, a meeting point enabling a difference to be noticed, yet disenchanting any illusion of its realness. It is a lack, that needs to be addressed with love. Soothingly, there is no magic here.