The Spiral
LibraryLondon
Opening reception: January 26th 2017
Duration of the exhibition: January 27th - March 04th 2017
Pauline BATISTA
Goia MUJALLI
Theresa VOLPP
At regular intervals the calcareous matter I was secreting came out coloured, so a number of lovely stripes were formed running straight through the spirals, and this shell was a thing different from me but also the truest part of me, the explanation of who I was, my portrait translated into a rhythmic system of volumes and stripes and colours and hard matter, [...] when you looked closer you discovered all sorts of little differences that later on might become enormous."
Italo Calvino - Cosmicomics: The Spiral
The Spiral takes its name from an eponymous story by Italo Calvino. Narrated from the perspective of a mollusc, it depicts the animal's peculiar creation. Sensing its making as a form of self-expression, the mollusc becomes mesmerised by its becoming and falls in love with the vicinity. Eventually with eyes, its sight reveals the body as a place that senses both what lies nearby and in the distance.
Like in Calvino's story, the exhibition conflates fascination with repulse, the familiar with the unexpected and a compact world with the delicacy of magnitude. Merging what is supposedly opposed into a single subject of contemplation, the artworks unravel their significance while we are moving through the show. A distant angle evokes the urge for closer examination, whereas proximity demands more space. Micro- and macrocosm are in a constant spiel of give and take, and question the very nature of what we might call a detail or an overview. Within this fusion of conflicting matter lies the odd but captivating of this exhibition's story. Appearing to us like an entangled spiral of sensation, near and far sight unite through one aesthetic journey.
Text by: Christian Lübbert
