Taxonomy
The last days of the last year i have been taking some time to get through the “Art of Memory” ongoing installation-archive, ongoing inventory of objects and images. During the last year, after several design concept tests and trials, it seemed like a suitable choice the black lid glass container as a “preservation” solution – sort of a direct recourse to a shape and form with functions and aims very much bound to our cultural idea of conservation… There is something visually and tactile pleasing in the plain form, the compact solidity of the glass and the unexpected (playful) convergences between the original purpose of the recipient and its new content.
But there´s also something peculiarly satisfying in the process of preparing/cleaning/altering the jars, covering in opaque black paint the previous lids´patterns and glossy adverts…
The most enjoyable, yet is the sensual exercise of going through the items, touching their skins and selecting, smelling the matter across layers of dust particles and inventing categories, arranging then, the assigned jars to the new section, family, type, level… For now there are named: “tickets”; “notes”; “identification cards”; “silver and golden gifts”; “writing tool gifts”; “Paris goods”.
It comes to mind Walter Benjamin´s “Talk about Book Collecting”, an essay that starts like: “I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am.” and formulates the mechanisms of the relationship between a (book) collector and its obsession (possession) such as:
“Every passion borders the chaotic, but the collector´s passion borders the chaos of memories.” (…) Thus, there is in the life of a collector a dialectical tensions between the poles of disorder and order. Naturally, his existence is tied to many other things as well: to a very mysterious relationship to ownership, something about which we will have more to say later; also a relationship to objects which does not emphasize their functional utilitarian value—that is, their usefulness—but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage, of their fate. The most profound enchantment of the collector is the locking of the individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them. Everything remembered and thought, everything conscious, becomes the pedestal, the frame, the base, the lock of his property. The period, the region, the craftsmanship, the former ownership—for a true collector the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia whose quintessence is the fate of his object.” (Benjamin, Walter. “Unpacking my Library: A Talk about Book Collecting,” in Illuminations, New York: Schocken Books, 1969; translated by Harry Zohn, edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt , pp. 59-67./ p. 60
Enjoy a healthy new year!
TICKETS
NOTES
IDENTIFICATION
luiza mogosanu 
I LOVE this!!! You have me thinking some new thoughts and seeing some things in new ways!!! ( A little bit ironic given the topic, but also completely apropos given your creative presentation.) Thank you!!!
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Thank YOU for such generous feed-back – am totally grateful to read this! I was lucky enough to be able to team up with a very perceptive photographer who rendered the objects/idea in the light i imagined… A bright and inspiring New Year to you!
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Have a happy new year. Ciao.
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Thank you very much! As well, a happy and healthy 2017 to you!
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Your blog is very beautiful and oustanding. Ciao.
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These gave me great pleasure. In a much earlier part of my life (I was a sculptor) I used to work and play with glass bulbs and retorts.
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The glass is such an intriguing material…i like the mix of brittle (airy) substance and its optical properties… Would love to see images of your work/process! Perhaps on your website?
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I only have a few sculptures online and these are all large solid pieces (http://hilarycustancegreen.com/Hilary_Author_Website/Sculpture.html). Your work will perhaps make me look through some old photos.
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I love your sculpture work. i love “Phlébas the Phoenician” and i love the “Dance with Spheres”, the “Sphere Fragments”, The “Boat with Passenger”… They are so rich in symbols and atmosphere – Thank you very much for introducing me to your visual work – that is an intellectual feast. Have a lovely weekend!!
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You are very kind. It all feels like a long time ago, but it is fun to revive those interests. Thank you.
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I really love your monumental works and guessing traces of their history and relation with their environments throughout the photo layers, thank you too: it´s inviting and inspiring to revisit past series and researches…
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You are so kind. I don’t really know why I had the need to work on such a large scale (it was either that or microscopic). You are right there is history. I had a head filled with poetry and in 1974 my boyfriend was drowned and this certainly influenced my work for several years.
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There might be a connection between this big scale craze and the exuberance (vehemence) of the age?… I´ve experienced this phase myself in my early 20s, as student at the university and it all made sense, painting avidly on bed sheets, willing somehow to initiate something “bigger” than human… I like a lot how you described it, “a head filled with poetry”… As i haven´t lost anyone so close, i think i can only imagine the massive way it affects you as a being. It comes now to mind the word the Germans use for “passion”, which is “Leidenschaft” – a joint of “Leiden” (suffering) and a suffix, shaft (ship/hood), a state that perhaps explains precisely how many of the artistic works came to life…
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GReat posts, and I do absolutely agree with Walter Benjamin on what collecting is all about
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