ABSENT SKIN
Et al. (San Francisco, USA)
2023
ABSENT SKINinstallation view 2023Photo:
Aaron Harbour
ABSENT SKINexhibition map 2023
ABSENT SKINdetail perforation drawings in mount 2023Photo:
Aaron Harbour
In ABSENT SKIN, the works (3, 7, 21, 147, 3087) aim at vitalizing some of the enclosures of seemingly uninvolved structures (form, surface, display, location, country). The transdisciplinary works in the exhibition consist of traditional art forms such as drawing, sculpture, print and performance - which gladly slip away from their function as works of “visual art” in their prioritization to meet the gaze. Each work-groupings’ conceptual performativity is brought to the fore as it functions as formal work and at the same time as intervention. By making porosity, perforation, and breath central parameters of ABSENT SKIN, the works occur on the surface and expose material and metaphoric limits as extendable.
Various absences are operating in the exhibition, while the imperative of having to be seen in order to be granted existence is questioned: the performance occurs in the absence of an audience. The 3 performers’ exhale parameters the rhythm of the pigment’s application onto the walls: a simple choreography of leaving a wall-glow. The specificity of the performers’ own embodied polylingual and transcultural knowledge is central information in what all is constituting the glow left behind.
As pigment is applied onto the walls on either side of the exhibition space, the center wall is expanded: holes drilled by gallery workers extend that architectural structure, and 21 hollow porcelain sculptures intervene into it, as if to let it breathe. Later, when the wall gets spackled for exhibitions to come, it will remain porous.
The work is created and installed in the physical absence of the artist. No flying about the planet has been undertaken, no borders crossed. The work is created under continuous communication with each collaborator involved, stringing together a sensual closeness despite distance – the common experience of temporary reconnection between absence kin.
3087 seconds of a listening-session will be live-streamed on the day of the opening, bridging places that can not touch, while making possible to attune to a listening experience created by and in absence of the DJ in resonance with the exhibition’s core concepts.
ABSENT SKIN is a situation offering a temporary relief from full attesting in order to exist. ABSENT SKIN is an invitation to exhale.
ABSENT SKINperforation drawings in mount 2023Photo:
Aaron Harbour
ABSENT SKINdetail (21) perforation drawings in mount 2023Photo:
Aaron Harbour
ABSENT SKINdetail (147)risograph poster (front)2023
ABSENT SKINdetail (147) risograph poster (back)2023
Listening Session/DJ
Aio Frei
Risograph Print
Colpa Press, San Francisco
Text Editor
Tash MattesonPerformers
P Leal
Beatriz Escobar
Marcel Pardo Ariza