Inside, outside and across

Amalia Pica: it's a reconsideration of a first version of the piece which I made a few years ago. I always wanted to re-work the idea - this passage from outdoors to the inside of the gallery. The piece is also a note on artistic production. I look at what is happening in the world and I wonder how a work of art can be as interesting as the stuff we experience or see when walking down the street. It's like a parable, we see something then try to make the best of it but there's this translation into language upon the piece entering the gallery space in which something is lost, in this case the color of the bulbs. 


This exhibition affords each work a lot of space and there is a kind of quiet aesthetic to the exhibition. There eis something about that quietness that i have't quite put my finger on but that is definitely crucial for how i need the show to come together. There is something of the casual appearance of the materials that has to do with an understanding not only of art but also of life, as well as moments in which things come together as though they make sense. The world is cruel, absurd and meaningless but there are moments where things seem to fall into place and make sense, albeit or fleetingly. i look for that balance in the arrangement of the materials, although I also want the works to look as though they could change or evolve. I don't want to close down the meaning of what they do.


The biggest piece in the space is 'Acoustic Radar in cardboard', which was the only work I made in the studio. it is a sculpture that is also capable of being activated by a performance action but that also results in another image, a tableau. The sculpture is not made from wood or metal but from cardboard, which renders it as useless as a device for listening so it can only operate as an image.


The singer is Italian and sings in Spanish to try and conquer the Latin American market. She is playing the cliche, literally. I don't expect that irony to be translated, for me it's a representation of what someone in Italy thought would sell in South America. Overhearing is the crucial in that work, it's not the cliche itself which is interesting, it's more how inbuilt our ability to produce images in our minds of where that music comes from. we are all conditions to imagine.


The sculpture is a loose representation of the Echevaria plant, a succulent that is native to Mexico and is named after a botanical artist called Atanasio Echeverria but the plant 's name is a misspelling of the artists surname. The plant is actually a replica of a plant in Kew gardens, despite being from Central America. The plant is resistant to a number of difficult conditions so I thought about the sculpture inhabiting a number of different environments without much trouble.


Instructions to make Catachresis #13 (elbow of the pipe, eye of the
potato, eye of the needle), 2012

(Amalia Picendale at Chisenhale, 25 mei tot 15 juli, interview in boekje bij de tentoonstelling)