Materials: mirrors, orthodontic elastic bands, concrete
In 2016, my sculptural language started to become bent out of shape. Striving to build a monumental mountain, assembled using ill-fitting items became the tipping point.
Engorged by my failed mountain as it collapsed and concertina around me, this impossible performance became less about conquering a monumental mountain and more about a confrontation of reaching a limit.
Reading Rudolf Arnheim’s essay ‘The Echo of the Mountain’ from ‘The Split and the Structure’; a collection of 28 essays published in 1996, my un-mountain, which I went on to title ‘Gorge’, 2016, began to echo Arnheim’s analogy of the art works ability to reflect physical and mental struggles, which he refers to as the ‘impediments of the body’ in relation to ‘the ease of the mind’s mobility’. [1]
Several months later, I was invited to exhibit in a group show, titled ‘Punctuated³’, but thought I had drawn the short straw when allocated the smallest space, with a mere 2.6cm³ dimensions, since my practice, at that time, was working on a much larger scale. In the lead up to this exhibition I was fortunate to witness one of Pistoletto’s series of ‘Metrocubo d’infinito’ that was exhibited in ‘John Latham’s: A Lesson in Sculpture’, at The Henry Moore Institute, in Leeds, during 2017. Formed using only two materials; mirrors and rope, and constructed with minimal intervention but one profoundly enigmatic act; six mirrored surfaces facing inwards, the 120cm height, by 120cm width, and 120cm depth dimensions of Pistoletto’s cube harboured an unseen, metre³ interior chamber which harboured infinity.
Back in 1967, Gemano Celant defined Italian Arte Povera [2] as a time when ‘iconographic conventions’ were ‘collapsing’ and ‘symbolic and conventional languages’ were ‘crumbling’ [3]. Possibly the last or one of the last 20th century art movements, what spoke to my current sculptural predicament, wherein, I wanted to find a means to exceed the limitations of the space that I was given to exhibit within, came in the form of an echo that reverberated through time and space, from 1965/66 when ‘Metrocubo d’infinito’ was created.
Unlike phenomena that is perceived through the senses, in Immanuel Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ from 1781, he defines ‘noumena’ as objects of inquiry that require the act of thought. Though the limitless space of Pistoletto’s infinity chamber is not visible and only comes to mind if the material association is made, in this sense, could Pistoletto’s infinity cube be positioned somewhere between a phenomenon and a noumenon, since it points to what is not shown from what is shown?
Pistoletto’s ‘Metrocubo d’infinito’ could be considered as entwining manual and intellectual forms of labour, since it requires physical and mental forms of dexterity to be flexed, if we are to interpret its immaterial value bound by the materials. Perhaps Pistoletto’s loosely constructed form could be considered an act of re-formation that reconsiders the currency of different types of labour (physical / mental, skilled / unskilled, productive / unproductive)?
Though my reinterpretation of Pistoletto’s metre infinity cube had to be concentrated to meet the constraints of the space allocated, ‘Concentrate’, 2017, harnessed an equally infinite interior as Pistoletto’s original.
Scaling down Pistoletto’s cube and replacing the rope with orthodontic bands that degrade over time, it took approximately 4 years for the orthodontic bands to breakdown the inherent value of the work.
[1] Rudolph Arnheim. ‘The Split and the Structure’. University of California Press. 1996. p92-96
[2] Museum of Modern Art (MOMA): New York City. (n.d.) Arte Povera. Retrieved from: https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/arte-povera. Source cited: 20th August, 2022
A movement of young Italian artists who attempted to create a new sculptural language through the use of humble, everyday materials. Meaning “poor art,” the term was introduced in 1967 by Italian art critic and curator Germano Celant to describe the work by these artists. In them, Celant found a shared revolutionary spirit inextricably linked to the increasingly radical political atmosphere in Italy at the time. By using non-precious and impermanent materials such as soil, rags, and twigs, Arte Povera artists sought to challenge and disrupt the commercialization of art.
[3] Extract from the text originally published in the exhibition catalogue Galleria La Bertesca: Genoa. (1967) Arte povera – Im Spazio, in Germano, Celant et al. (2000) Arte povera in collezione (Arte povera in collection), Milano: Charta, pp. 27-28