Commodity Sculpture is the title of a chapter by critic Hal Foster[1] published in the 1990s, in which he observes how sculptural language has continued to evolve with the advent of the ready-made, eventually incorporating design and kitsch. This analysis introduces the perspective that the object, though elevated to a monumental form, breaks down the boundaries between high art and commodity culture, thus transforming their relationship into a central issue. In this context, Alek O. (1981, Buenos Aires) presents the project They didn’t explain much, and no one dared to ask at the Roman space IUNO, on view until September 13th 2024, curated by Cecilia Canziani and Ilaria Gianni, with a critical text by Giulia Gaibisso.
Alek O., “They didn’t explain much, and no one dared to ask”, installation view, courtesy IUNO and the Artist, ph. Credit Chiara Cor
The exhibition offers an unexpected approach within the domestic environment of IUNO, blending the characteristics of an exhibition space with those of a place for research and artist residencies. Although the rooms take on a residential form, the artist constructs a navigable path where the interventions are not decontextualized but rather methodically organized. In this way, Alek O. engages in reductions, reversals and assemblages, using two materials: ceiling lights and retrieved bedsprings, intending to play with their programmatic and phenomenological aspects, ultimately highlighting their new aesthetic autonomy.
Alek O., “They didn’t explain much, and no one dared to ask”, installation view, courtesy IUNO and the Artist, ph. Credit Chiara Cor
However, the artist’s approach is certainly one that radically alters the conventions of sculptural plasticity, with a spectrum of inventiveness that is anything but monumental. Instead, the focus is on the creator and the viewer, as in a primordial relationship of representation, deliberately neglecting the experiential aspect. In challenging traditional assumptions of sculpture, Alek O. pushes her research toward the dissolution of icons and everyday objects, following in the footsteps of the 2007 exhibition at the New Museum in New York titled Unmonumental, which traced the history of a sculpture capable of critically describing the present through infinite combinations of textures and objects. For this reason, the works possess a polysemic character, as they contrast with the natural use of objects to the point of uprooting their functional roots: retrieved bedsprings become unbalanced designs that follow visual imagination, while floor lamps, assembled with playful instinct, attract attention through their luminous physicality. This last aspect, above all, confirms that Alek O.’s sculptures must be perceived visually. Yet, contrary to what Hal Foster suggested, these object-sculptures are neither anachronistic stumbling blocks nor aestheticizing tricks, and they certainly do not verge on kitsch. Herein lies their true artistic essence: they are sculptures as commodities, as operations that unmask the illusion of the common imagination towards familiar and intimate commercial materials, avoiding any speculation and, instead, giving voice to new physical and spatial references while simultaneously determining specific terms and codes.
Alek O., “They didn’t explain much, and no one dared to ask”, installation view, courtesy IUNO and the Artist, ph. Credit Chiara Cor
Thus, the artist develops an unconventional exercise that transcends the ready-made: it is not the works that narrate the spaces but rather new figures that are constructed through decompositions, alliterations, fragmentations and assemblages, with the immediate result of creating new bodies and morphologies based on prominent uses of bizarre yet far from random combinations and juxtapositions. Alek O., positioning herself beyond the limits of traditional sculptural demands, reveals her relationship with these tools, stripped as they are from the wear and tear of domestic intimacy. The artist’s work is centered on the metamorphosis of the object, where the process becomes an opportunity to rethink everyday artifacts whose forms stimulate new unions. If the retrieved bedsprings on walls may allude to the rigorous setup of a painting gallery, the luminous sculptures, resting on iron skeletons, instead emanate a magical and mystical character. Yet both works, exploiting the epistemic radicality of the ready-made and remaining devoid of any metaphorical reference, brush up against a new dimension that thrives on arrangement against any normal use.
Alek O., “They didn’t explain much, and no one dared to ask”, installation view, courtesy IUNO and the Artist, ph. Credit Chiara Cor
Moreover, the project title, drawn from Lydia Davis’s story Jury Duty, plays with a reversal of perspectives, wherein the act of questioning becomes a prerogative of understanding, and in the same way the sculptures attract an attentive audience capable of dialogic responses. It’s certain that what IUNO proposes is essential in mediating between environment and sculpture, creating a cohesive dimension, a physical and mental path that encourages the visitor to actively participate in discovering what the artist’s vision reveals through the morphology of materials and their assemblage. The intention is to expose the imaginary security of a separation between the sphere of consumption and intimate daily destruction. Alek O. is, therefore, a faber artist, a creator of new sculptural-objectual regimes where nothing is aleatory, but rather a generator of new formal principles with novel and unexpected meanings.
Maria Vittoria Pinotti
[1] Hal Foster, Scultura come merce, in Il ritorno del reale, Postemedia Books, Milano, 2006, pp. 113-121
Info:
Alek O., They didn’t explain much, and no one dared to ask
Curated by Ilaria Gianni and Cecilia Canziani
03/05/2024 – 13/09/2024
IUNO
Opening hours: Monday and Wednesday from 10:30 AM to 6:00 PM and by appointment
Via Ennio Quirino Visconti, 55, Roma
www.iunoiuno.it
Maria Vittoria Pinotti (1986, San Benedetto del Tronto) is an art historian, author, and independent critic. She currently is the coordinator of Claudio Abate’s photographic archive and Manager at Elena Bellantoni’s Studio. From 2016 to 2023 she was the Gallery Manager in a gallery in the historic center of Rome. She has worked with ministerial offices such as the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Culture and the Central State Archive. Currently, she collaborates with cultural sector magazines, focusing on in-depth thematic studies dedicated to modern and contemporary art.
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