SPILL
Verb: sculpture as a Spill
Spill: a verb of excess, accidents and unpredictability. A verb on the brink
—of a flow drip
concealing as it reveals / interiority:
guts and tears spill off as strikes
slicing space as strokes on paper
metal bars crease, fold and spring
in inverse gravity, reach-/recoil-ing cursives use ends as beginnings to curl and curl
and curl, soft, wet words spraying threads of spittle
that glint and fade as shadow-bodies shadow objects
to glint again between ribbon-bandages or ribbon-bows that curl like metal.
*
The thing about spills is that they have shape based on the thing that they’re in when they’re unrealised spills, but also countless shapes that could always come into being based on how the spill came into being. Twist your back to stretch and your elbow flings along with momentum. On contact, force transfers as vibrations, rippling through the walls of a cup, say, and makes waves of its contents until the waves start to slosh, and everything, like the whole thing, is buzzing with nervous anticipation. It gathers mass, hurling out of the cup, and the air does a clumsy catch and capture before splat or rather swirls. As it spreads it thins yet becomes bigger. You study its morphing shape to guess whether the gesture that was applied to the spill was soft or violent or medium before panic and it meets the mop.
*
The artist Richard Serra said “drawing is a verb” then wrote a list of verbs called Verb List. With 84 verbs and 24 possessives, Serra’s list underscores the process of making at large, but also embodies the nature of sculpture—that it is active, about to complete a gesture, and also never complete. Vy Trịnh’s installation Knock Sensor is, in many senses, a commitment to carrying out verbs—verbs that skirt the dogma of explanation, the contextualisations that exhaust the work. Verbs let things be things and not stand-ins for other things.
At the end of his list, Serra writes “to continue” as an instruction, a reminder, a touch of uncertainty in trying to figure out how to continue:
- Thái Hà
*
Knock Sensor, 2024
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More about the exhibition: https://www.galeriequynh.com/exhibitions/137-on-da-dream-vy-trinh/
On Da Dream @ Galerie Quynh
August 10 - October 12, 2024
At the end of his list, Serra writes “to continue” as an instruction, a reminder, a touch of uncertainty in trying to figure out how to continue:
- Thái Hà
*
Knock Sensor, 2024
site-responsive sculpture
flat steel bar, custom-made steel frame, brass, flux, nickel-plated steel ball chain, organza ribbon, satin ribbon and rhinestone chain
site-dependent dimensions
------More about the exhibition: https://www.galeriequynh.com/exhibitions/137-on-da-dream-vy-trinh/
On Da Dream @ Galerie Quynh
August 10 - October 12, 2024
