Rosa Barba
18 Sep - 31 Oct 2009
ROSA BARBA
"Stating the Real Sublime"
September 18 - October 31, 2009
Gio Marconi gallery is pleased to announce the first solo show with Rosa Barba "Stating the Real Sublime".
On display on the gallery’s groundfloor will be several films and installations as well as her new filmic sculptures and text pieces on felt.
The trilogy "Western Round Table", "They Shine" and "Waiting Grounds" all share the geographical starting point of the Mojave Desert in California: The film “They Shine”, an impressive 35mm projection which could already be seen at the T2 Torino Triennale in 2008 is informed by urban myths and personal hypotheses. From outside a perimeter fence endless rows of semi-circular mirrors slowly revolve, reflecting their surroundings. A man’s voice is heard, his tone that of a particular kind of American cinema, introspective and mythic. “Western Round Table”, whose title refers to a conference that took place in 1949 and at which representatives from art, literature, music and science (among them Marcel Duchamp and Frank Lloyd Wright) discussed contemporary art and its possibile future, is a sculpture consisting of two 16mm projectors that have their spotlights aimed at one another as if in a dialogue.
In "Machine Vision Seekers" a moving projector casts text fragments of a fictional script onto the surrounding walls. Rosa Barba makes use of a moving projector, which literally throws the words onto the wall. That partly aggressive act is also a reference to the blindness of the protagonists in the text and to the several layers in the storyline (in the sense that the projector is abandoning the two-dimensional screen). „Machine Vision Seekers“ shifts between the projector and the viewer, a deconstructed screening where all parts, visible and non-visible, are interlinked, thus creating an imageless cinema.
In the new sculptures, "Enigmatic Whistler" and “Stating the Real Sublime“ the material takes over and leads the machine in a kind of anarchic gesture. In „Enigmatic Whistler“ the projector is embraced by its own narration. In „Stating the Real Sublime“ the projector is suspended from the ceiling by its own celluloid material, trying to balance itself out and formulating a screen.
Barba’s deconstructed projector choir "Coro Spezzato: The Future lasts one Day", an installation consisting of five 16mm projectors that cast fragments of sentences about a new collective future onto the surrounding walls, is another of Barba’s sculpture – performances and can still be seen at the 53rd Venice Biennale in the Giardini’s Palazzo delle Esposizione.
"Stating the Real Sublime"
September 18 - October 31, 2009
Gio Marconi gallery is pleased to announce the first solo show with Rosa Barba "Stating the Real Sublime".
On display on the gallery’s groundfloor will be several films and installations as well as her new filmic sculptures and text pieces on felt.
The trilogy "Western Round Table", "They Shine" and "Waiting Grounds" all share the geographical starting point of the Mojave Desert in California: The film “They Shine”, an impressive 35mm projection which could already be seen at the T2 Torino Triennale in 2008 is informed by urban myths and personal hypotheses. From outside a perimeter fence endless rows of semi-circular mirrors slowly revolve, reflecting their surroundings. A man’s voice is heard, his tone that of a particular kind of American cinema, introspective and mythic. “Western Round Table”, whose title refers to a conference that took place in 1949 and at which representatives from art, literature, music and science (among them Marcel Duchamp and Frank Lloyd Wright) discussed contemporary art and its possibile future, is a sculpture consisting of two 16mm projectors that have their spotlights aimed at one another as if in a dialogue.
In "Machine Vision Seekers" a moving projector casts text fragments of a fictional script onto the surrounding walls. Rosa Barba makes use of a moving projector, which literally throws the words onto the wall. That partly aggressive act is also a reference to the blindness of the protagonists in the text and to the several layers in the storyline (in the sense that the projector is abandoning the two-dimensional screen). „Machine Vision Seekers“ shifts between the projector and the viewer, a deconstructed screening where all parts, visible and non-visible, are interlinked, thus creating an imageless cinema.
In the new sculptures, "Enigmatic Whistler" and “Stating the Real Sublime“ the material takes over and leads the machine in a kind of anarchic gesture. In „Enigmatic Whistler“ the projector is embraced by its own narration. In „Stating the Real Sublime“ the projector is suspended from the ceiling by its own celluloid material, trying to balance itself out and formulating a screen.
Barba’s deconstructed projector choir "Coro Spezzato: The Future lasts one Day", an installation consisting of five 16mm projectors that cast fragments of sentences about a new collective future onto the surrounding walls, is another of Barba’s sculpture – performances and can still be seen at the 53rd Venice Biennale in the Giardini’s Palazzo delle Esposizione.