La Silla de Kosuth

In this exhibition the out-of-frame is extended in a more radical material and conceptual way. I set up a mediagua (shack) -to make a simile of that of the inhabited vacant site- on the second floor of the gallery. Because of its arrangement in the space, the viewer was obliged to enter the house. From a window, a large-format painting of the site and the house could be seen.

This work marked a certain formal definition of what I was calling the space inside and outside the painting. The definition of this was not as literal as what is inside and outside, or representation and reality, but rather the relationship of both spaces, the interstice between the two. The works that served me as conceptual and reflective models to elaborate this device were Las Meninas by Velázquez and Étant Donnés by Marcel Duchamp.

At that time, I wrote: “… to create an image in flight, thinking of those images that present their subject at the center and that in their emptiness the back escapes, through which the gaze escapes. As if the gaze were always looking for something other than what is shown to it. In Las Meninas, it is the mirror in the background and the figure on the steps. These become more relevant in the search for information, in the need to know the causes of the scenic display of the foreground. It seems that the gaze always escapes towards that which constitutes its out-of-frame”.

Now I see that this space inside-outside the frame, was a space that does not correspond exactly to the work, but rather it was the space that is defined by and for the spectator. A space not sufficiently neutral, not sufficiently seductive, created by a mechanism of illusion and disillusionment with respect to what is represented in the experience of this double game.

Año:
Tipo de Investigación:
exhibición:
Galería Posada del Corregidor
ciudad:
Santiago
país:
Chile
Especificación:
  • La silla de Kosuth (Kosuth’s chair)
    Mediagua (shack) large format oil on canvas painting
Tipo de proyecto:
tipo de obra: