PRESS RELEASE
[testo in italiano]
“Where does point zero of the hermit who is looking the
horizon end?” So declares an ancient hermetic text when referring to the
principle of polarity where, in the phenomenic world, absolute and static
principles do not exist, everything moves, everything vibrates, everything
is dual and any truth is nothing other then a half truth, so everything
is relative: up and down, near and far, inside and outside, before and
after, and they aren’t in themselves opposites, but two aspect
of the same substance that are different only in degree.
This serves as an introduction to the illuminism
of Sancho Silva, of whom we are happy to present the second solo show
at pinksummer. Silva connects mathematics and philosophy, science and
ethics through a rhythmical process that is both anabolic and catabolic
in equilibrium, that works on a highly dynamic principle of reason that
undermines the aprioristic bases of perception: the very concepts of
space and time. The aesthetic field, in this sense, is be considered
as the ideal humus for the Silva experimentations, detracting itself
from any kind of dogmatism of knowledge, both moral and also aesthetic.
With regards to its end purposes, Silva's investigation
into perceptive mechanisms is an attempt to lead us to freedom of consciousness,
revolting against the principle of authority, including that of stagnant
habits: Silva's art has a humoristic-subversive aspect, which is very
Portuguese, that we really like a lot.
Absurdly Silva's methodology achieves on the physical
level of perception what Ceal Floyer achieves on the double ethereal
of language: both of them disarrange our beliefs, turning them around
the buoy of reason. Lessing stated that if God had given him the possibility
to choose between truth and research, he would have chosen the second
option, because only through unceasing research does a human being improve
himself. Reason does not allow for us to acquire a definitive and static
knowledge, but instead provides us with a consciousness of the impossibility
to consider any prospective as absolute.
The perceptive slipping, the fragmented and parcelled
visions put forward by Silva, show us how any kind of relationship between
terms, subject and predicate, is conditioned by the position that the
subject occupy in the three-dimensional space in that precise timeframe.
Space and time for Silva are two aspect of the same substance, since
perceptions always come from inside the three-dimensional space and
the temporal succession, space and time are in the end the condition
sine qua non of perception, but unlike Kant, Silva's criticism doesn’t
intends space and time as pure base and causative intuitions a priori,
as elements on which to found vision, but categories which are themselves
subject to historical becoming.
Logical paradoxes of Floyer using real objects
as if they were words, or examining language as a substitute for reality,
shows us how language is a inadequate and arbitrary system of representation
of the prismatic concreteness of the world, and how verbal communication
lends itself to every kind of paralogism and sophism. In the same way,
Silva, by subverting our visual expectations, demonstrates how space
and time are systems of representation ductile and mouldable as clay
inside his perceptive nets.
As the Brechtian theatre, the conceptual trompe
l’oeil of Floyer and the perceptive logics of Silva do not look
for the inclusion of the viewer, they demand distance: in their works
is the content, or better, the function that determines shape, but it
is the shape that disciplines force and doesn’t permit it to scatter,
the fruition of it therefore demands a vigilant spirit, it is not here
that you find the aesthetic dullness of contemplation, and if it is
found it has to pursue the track of reason, where Apollo and Dionysius
can hold each other's hand sure to be not seen. Floyer and Silva keep
us anchored to sensorial experience, not permitting that any form of
automatism will organize itself in a judgement that has been predetermined
from past experiences, not tolerating that our knowledge and comprehension
of reality is directed by our expectations founded on unilluminated
bigotry. Between calculation and abstraction, the architectures of Silva
stocked the polarities of active and passive, positive and negative
flowingly passing throw from one side to the other: to see/ to be see,
to hidden/to show, to look out/ to see inside.
Filipa Ramos affirms (Contemporary no 87 November
2006) that Sancho Silva's works are not visible because they are done
not to be seen but to see. Instead, we think that Silva's architecture,
from the more simple to those more complex, contain objects of great
aesthetic impact.
In pinksummer Silva will present a study on Cairo
city. The raw materials are constituted from three transversal tracks
that Silva documented with a series of photographies taken walking from
the centre to the periphery of the metropolis crossing the rich and
organized quarters of the city, to the residential bourgeoisie zones,
until those no-mans' lands where barracks and abusive houses alternate
into residual emptiness, those off-limit zones that are never included
on official maps. Those tracks are presented in the gallery on a wooden
object. From its centre three truncated pyramids protrude. At their
extremity, three monitors show the sequence of images from the centre
to the suburbs, from culture and its scum until nature. A track ends
in the desert, both of the other tracks end in the fields.
The other work is a machine constructed from two
truncated pyramids horizontally laid down on one side, while the basis
are put on the external side, the two extremities are connected in the
centre, creating a restriction that incorporates the vision of the satellite
image of Cairo shown in a light box, while the viewer is the opposite
side.
On the occasion of the second solo show at Pinksummer,
Sancho Silva will also present a permanent project carried out in the
outdoor space of Parfiri, a company based in Vado Ligure whose office
building was designed by 5+1AA. The installation “Involtino” consists
of wooden construction. Inside it, the viewer will enjoy the upside-down
landscape, given from the illusory reflections of a mirrors system.
Pinksummer public time: Tue/Sat 15-19.30 and by appointment.
LINKS
Sancho silva website: http://www.sancho-silva.blogspot.com
http://orangeworks.blogspot.com
