“(. . .) ‘A’ ask to ‘B’: How does one continue to believe in an artwork when there are so many reasons to doubt?
Doesn’t the propensity to define, close off, schematize, or rather to categorise, coincide with a distinct Western push for ‘visualization’?
Is there a juncture where a sculpture blurs into a photograph, where a silkscreen print retains the tactile nature akin to a painting,
or where an empty space would seem to appear as an already set up exhibition, challenging the objectivity of a sculpture?
It’s much like a game of Chinese whispers, remember? That game where a message embarks on one end and lands on the other, with distortions and ‘collateral’ additions.
Perhaps, this phenomenon is also inherent in visuals. The collective perception of any artistic context is shaped by its exhibition stages.
How does an image of a sculpture find its way to my gaze?
Through an ‘exhibition view.’
Perhaps, this is the realm that I need to probe further into.”
Francesco De Prezzo’s work examines some experiential concepts of artistic production, testing the way in which objects and works of art interact with our vision.
His practice is generally characterised by an idea of erasure of the subject to exploring the role of the viewer as a complicit figure in a process of construction and fruition of the visible.
In this project, the artist work with some placeholder elements, rather than actual works, focusing on a layout rather than a set-up.
The large space is transformed into an active context, in which it is not clear whether something has already happened or is yet to happen.
The photographic narrative not only takes part in the project but constitutes it.
The feeling is that of being in front of a large mock-up, where sculptures formed by closed photographic tripods mark some strategic positions in space, as if indicating the hypothetical position of future works.
at FORM, Wageningen
until July 27, 2023