Ombre Perenni

CONDEMNATION

Temple University Art Gallery, Rome, Italy

Year:
2004

Dimensions:
22’ H x 48’ L x 24’ W

Materials:Elastic thread, gold ring, lead, nails, white walls, daylight, and mirror

Radiating from the high corner of the long, narrow gallery, hundreds of fine white threads bisected the space and collecting the changing daylight. The light from the opposite windows revealed the taut, translucent threads as they stretched through the air to the lower corner of the room. There, the indistinct rays took shape as they met a delicate network of fluid lines – a drawing articulating the vascular system of a human figure falling to the earth. The viewer’s feet were reflected in a small mirror resting in the lowermost corner of the gallery floor, just beneath the head of the inverted form.

The work placed the audience in direct juxtaposition between the traditional context of the gallery space and the immediacy of the fragile work. The viewer’s physical form was echoed, engaging them as an active participant, aware of the mutability of perception, human mortality, and the variable light and time of the present.

Condemnation was an ephemeral work created for an exhibition in the high and low corners of the Temple University Gallery in Rome.