Shema Sai 190 Resanta
суббота 08 декабря admin 21
Bill Balaskas, Formula, 2016. Neon, dimensions variable. Curator: Lanfranco Aceti. © Bill Balaskas, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.
In the curatorial approach for the staging of the works at the Kalfayan Galleries in Athens the intention of both the artist and the curator was to present a narrative which would offer a conceptual engagement, as well as a passionate and emotive connection with the vision for the show as a staging for the ‘end to come.’ The neon Formula, emptied of any value, remains a completion of nothingness—an abstraction which speaks to the mind of loss at the same time being a container to be filled in by the experience of the viewer. The work of art becomes one of the foci of the exhibition, staged as a flowing narrative and a moment of contemplation. Bill Balaskas, Formula, 2016. Neon, dimensions variable. Curator: Lanfranco Aceti. © Bill Balaskas, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.
There was no invitation to a revolution in these works of art. No action to be taken as such, but the artist asked for a deeper re-examination of both our personal experiences and ways of thinking. Primark—the symbol of indiscriminate financial capitalistic consumerism—is an empty bag placed in a plastic vacuum waiting for better times that may never come back. The emptiness of that sealed bag symbolizes the end of an era and of prosperity: no longer will there be flights to London to shop and bring back objects, icons of a mercimōnium of this planet and of the human soul done so lithely and so happily.
The Blanket analyzed another kind of vacuum: that of art, art processes, and artists engaged in constant processes of aestheticization for gain. The capturing of misery becomes another exploitative act, embedded within a larger context, with the stated impossibility of escape but with the opportunity of thinking about the standing of the artist in the light of the sunset with the multiple shadows cast upon the sand.
Bill Balaskas, Vacuum Bag, 2016. Paper bag, vacuum bag, 80 x 50 cm. Curator: Lanfranco Aceti.
© Bill Balaskas. Courtesy of the artist. Of the four works of art that dealt with vacuum, the most empty for me, was Flyer. This particular work of art was empty in its aesthetic since it was embedded, as part of its reality as a found object, in a context of exploitation upon which no other comment could be added or layered on. It boldly and simply presented the vacuum of a society in which the abnormal exploitation has been normalized with an acquiescence that by superseding anger will, at some point soon, become revenge in order to crystallize itself into the violent death of the sun drowned and sizzling in the water to perhaps never rise up again. Bill Balaskas, Distributor, 2016. Framed leaflet, 32 x 25.5 cm.
Curator: Lanfranco Aceti. © Bill Balaskas. Courtesy of the artist. The “End' / Failure of Utopia / 'Revolutionary' Politics Works: Amaurot (neon), Che Guevara's book, Megaphone.
The imaginary death of the sun as a metaphor—which is more representative of the death of the viewer—moves the artistic and curatorial discourse away from the emptiness of the previous works of art and points to the meaning of the inheritance of action. The second group of artworks deals, in fact, with actions and their historical inheritance. Is the end really final if there is an inheritance? More importantly, is the consequentialness of action and its long-term inheritance across decades and centuries an eternalizing ethical value of actions?
Balaskas in his approach and construction of the artworks looks at failure as the condition of everything. This is a condition that humanity in its entirety has created via actions which confirm and affirm, as absurd as this may be, the end via people’s final gesture. Actions and gestures are what is left as a philosophical and physical socio-political engagement, but at the same time negate the validity and reinforce the vanity of the inheritance of actions (aesthetic or not) as having any other function but that of bearing witness to the inability of people to act beyond their own short-term interests. Bill Balaskas, Amaurot, 2016. Neon, 39 x 207 x 6 cm. Curator: Lanfranco Aceti. © Bill Balaskas.
Courtesy of the artist. Note: Amaurot is the capital city of the imaginary island of Utopia according to English writer and philosopher Thomas More (1478 – 1535). This year marks the 500th anniversary from the publication of his book “Utopia” (1516), through which More introduced the term ‘utopia’ to the global lexicon. Amaurot is a neon work of art that is located between the tension of the will to exist, the reality of existence, and the utopian dream of a possible existence. The tension of Amaurot is rooted in the very concept of utopia—an unachievable goal that defines both aspirations and realities, and towards which everyone appears to be uselessly striving—which is represented by Balaskas as an ideological and real rot. The lack of correspondence between the capital of Utopia, Amaurot, and the reality of existence is hinted at by Balaskas through a neon sign in which the word rot is visible and readable while the rest of the city of Utopia, the remaining letters that compose the word are switched off. The action of searching for an ideal has become a rot, figuratively and aesthetically.