OV Project (en-US)

opening Saturday December 7, from 2 to 6pm

“Genesis,” a group exhibition featuring works exploring the space of energetic transference as artistic conception reaches out towards the gesture. Here the gestures of creation are often typified by singular movements, suspensions and distillations. The exhibition locates the impetus of artistic production between its “source” (γένεσις ) and its “becoming” (γίγνομαι). OV’s proposal takes as its art historical “figure 1,” La main négative, reflecting the echoes of bursts of ground rock pigments over hands whose contact with the first gallery walls produced traces of their own absence.

The inclusion of Constantin Brâncuși’s photograph, L’oiseau dans l’espace (1925-26), is emblematic. The reference provided by the exhibition’s title, “Genesis” describes its production–the performative gesture executed initially in plaster with both hands clasped together, moving upward to produce the work’s iconic shape, pointing towards the infinite.

The question of the initial gesture is a question of origins; it emanates from some concealed reservoir, as it is made visible, tangible, in an instant. Representative of artists’ cultivation of these preconditions is Takahashi Kaishu’s bronze vessel–connecting the syntax of Modernism with that of ikebana. It is accompanied by a 1950’s photograph by Ken Domon, depicting an arrangement of the period. The vessels’ interior connotes the wellspring where creativity makes birth, is distilled and refined. Where Kaishu anticipates the gesture, Domon suspends it, not unlike a bird in flight.

Complexity of concept is hidden by gestures' transparency, as if when confronted by the beholder, the energetic burst is reproduced with each viewing. This artwork-beholder relationship is most evident in Badrinath Pandit's Tantric work on paper, produced in the wake of deep meditation, uniting Shiva and Shaktí into a singular image. The image, a distillation itself, then returns to become the subject of meditation by its viewership. In the contemporary context, Franz West brings these concerns to the fore in his sculptural practice. His works on display are intended to be handled in a manner reminiscent of their initial production. Goro Kakei’s sculptures are produced from the rawest of materials–wood and paint–anthropomorphic forms between figuration and abstraction, raised up on its metal stand. Richard Nonas’ saw cuts, shaving the corners from a steel block, are equally transparent in their execution, highlighting their absence, their negative.

The thematics of suspension are perhaps most present in Teresa Solar’s work, Pequeña manía mecánica. A pair of glazed ceramic hoops are delicately held aloft by their wiry pedestal, giving a distinct impression of objects hovering in space. The forms are a result of temporal, yet actual, suspension. In their process of becoming, they are spun through the air in her studio, allowing centrifugal force to do its work on the material, effectively dispelling gravity, if only for a moment. Echos of suspension are felt throughout the exhibition in the works of Luca Vanello, Stief DeSmet, and Virginia Overton.

From a suspended position, “Genesis” addresses its subjects, of creativity, complexity, refinement and motion, as an open field. The approach is not narratological, but instead constellatory. The bursts of energy, of idea, of gesture, are spread far and wide across space and time, across history and culture. Suspended all at once they fill a night sky, perhaps traversed by Brâncuși’s Bird.

- Cayce H. L.