“cntempor rta esibtion”
FORM
17.03.25-17.04.25
Art has always thrived on echoes, on reverberations that move through time effortlessly, never quite revealing their point of origin. There is a way of looking, unguarded, uncalculated—like a local painter who, with disarming sincerity, claims to be inspired by Van Gogh while painting sunflowers. It is not a citation, but a resonance; not a reproduction, but a vague impression that lingers without worrying about fidelity.
In a deliberately ambiguous experiment, we set up an abandoned space with objects that seem to belong elsewhere. Not exact copies, not even precise reproductions. They are variations, slightly distorted forms, interpretations that conjure the essence of a style without fully committing to it. These objects operate through suggestion, activating a visual memory without ever exhausting it. Like a reflection in a slightly tarnished mirror, they evoke without defining, suggest without imposing.
Each piece exists in that delicate balance between recognition and estrangement. With the same naïveté that leads us to stumble upon a reproduction of the Mona Lisa or Starry Night in a Chinese department store, the viewer initially experiences a fleeting sense of familiarity. The shapes seem to belong to an already sedimented visual repertoire—almost known, yet somehow elusive. The linework is slightly off, the proportions are skewed, the material betrays its origin. The canvas feels too thin, the panel is wood, the frame threatens to collapse under the weight of a glance. It is an imperfect resemblance, close enough to spark recognition but never enough to fully merge with its reference. In this slippage, the act of assimilation is not an act of possession but an exercise in looking—a spontaneous process of visual rewriting, wavering between adherence and deviation.
In The Open Work, Umberto Eco explored the idea of art as something that never settles into a single interpretation, but instead evolves through its dialogue with the viewer. Here, rather than the absence of an original, what emerges is an unstable balance between fidelity and transformation—an intermittent flickering between the evoked image and its actual rendering. The installation plays with this tension, ensuring that the work never crystallizes into a sterile reproduction, but instead unfolds like a fragmented echo, a subtly distorted reflection bearing traces of an ever-elusive origin.
The operation is not without ambiguity. At what point does a reference remain legitimate? Those who read between the lines will recognize that art history is filled with such gestures—borrowed vocabularies repurposed in new contexts, often with an innocence that oscillates between homage and unintentional repetition. Some, with genuine conviction, present their works as “original” or “new,” unknowingly tracing well-worn paths, oblivious to the underlying web of references shaping them. But the issue is never just about repetition; it is about the way repetition is orchestrated. Is merely replicating an aesthetic enough to claim ownership? It all depends on intent. And if you stare at a reproduction or a poster long enough, at some point, it will start staring back at you.
This work does not behave like a copy, nor does it behave like an artwork in the conventional sense. It is, rather, a commentary, a yellow Post-it note stuck to the fridge, an absent-minded note left on a table. An alternative reading, or better yet—there it is!—a variation slipping into the space between the memory of the original and its new condition as a souvenir. Dear viewers, what you are observing is not art, but your own projections, gently manufactured somewhere in a distant factory. A reference dissolving at the very moment it tries to define itself, leaving behind a subtle aftertaste of vanilla.
Each element in this installation is like a phrase rewritten with a misplaced accent or a missing letter, a slightly off-key note that still retains its melody. It resists being reduced to mere mimesis, because that was never the point. It is not a copy, but a voluntary misunderstanding. "Oops." Not a citation, but a lapse. Can an artwork exist without migrating from one form to another? Or does it exist precisely because, in that transition, something cracks, something is lost, something is gained?
Flip the game. What if the so-called original was the greatest copy of them all?