Elena Bajo, "The Multiplier Effect" Vessel, Stonehouse, Plymouth, UK Curated by Carl Slater and Glen Johnston, 2011 Sculpture

Glass Factory Rejects, mirror, concrete. The dimensions of the work are: 285cm x 122cm x 180cm Spectacle of a Foreboding Structure by Carl Slater http://www.elenabajo.com/Elena_Bajo_On_Uncertain_Terms.pdf As infrastructure shifts through phases of redevelopment, and as art continues to engage ideas beyond traditional boundaries, both structure and idea exist in parallel when addressing the form in Elena Bajo’s sculptural assemblages. In an unorthodox approach to the intersecting of site histories and the performativity of art production, it’s the materials and their conceptual frameworks that deliver a revised set of criteria for consideration. Featured in a show entitled ‘Vessel’, Bajo’s site-specific work ‘The Multiplier Effect’ 2011, made in the old provincial of East Stonehouse, Plymouth, UK, finds itself within a building born from the result of heavy bomb damage from German Luftwaffe during the Second World War—yet in its present day now awaits its future demolition and contemporary renewal. Within this derelict, post-industrial structure and between grid support networks of concrete pillars, the sculptural form sits directly below a pyramidal skylight. Receptive to light change, a platonic situation between the quality and quantity of incoming light mystifies the work’s appearance and transparency as a visual spectacle. Physically, its materials are sourced from found objects and other detritus located within the immediate locale. These materials coupled with the linkage between formal and constructivist methods of arrangement, result in a curious combination of concrete blocks, a mirror, rubber tape, double glazed windows, single panes and tinted glass, all with semi-cleaned surfaces with residual traces of the past. Equally as important as its construction, the ideas of the work cannot go unnoticed. In combination and as a segmented unit, the piece refers to the linear implication of time and its possibilities through conceptual adaptation. Present is what can be described as a sculptural marker in twenty four stages +1, marking to the standard western time frame of twenty four hours, but with the inclusion of one extra hour as an offering and addition to chance the contingency and dimensions of real-time. Acting as a threshold or unwritten space, it offers the receiver of the work, a playful and unassigned moment to contemplate from within their own cognitive parameters of time. At first instance it seems a hazardous and potentially dangerous, fragile construction that dominates an interesting space, though beyond its sharp edged yet minimal surface is a conception of thought done during a timely process within the historic and economic contexts of the site. What ‘The Multiplier Effect’ does is reveals and questions the potential functions of art, resonating closely with Fluxus ideologies and the modification of political spaces. The containment and documentation of the work is important to enable the seizure of time and the commentary of the particularity in research based practice. Going with, but then going against a lineage of time suggests a degree of freedom that endorses orders of an anarchic system. It’s these systems that are often inherent in Bajo’s work, and here give rise to the lack of order and disarray of its post-industrial environment and the decline of local industry as an archive of potential ideas. The work not only functions as a work of art but it also acts as an ephemeral monument in acknowledgment of the flux of localised architectural and economic change. The explanation of its being need not be obvious but in fact what should be said and what remains important, is the body of information, the ideas and the execution that happens within the space during and after its existence. Derelict industrial space provides a significant basis for the works initiation but Bajo’s approach is direct and immediate in its form of site-response and in its articulation of existing materials. Unconfined by predefined means, Bajo exploits the boundary between the language of architecture and site-specific contexts in art, but it is only for a brief moment in time that the work and its location exist together, shortly to become disconnected from one another and their shared experience lost. "There’s also something of a Modernist look to Elena Bajo’s The Multiplier Effect, an assemblage of building materials salvaged from the local area. A row of upright window frames and glass, spaced with concrete blocks, imposes rhythm and order on the deteriorating building. Even so, the subtle insertion of a mirror creates an unsettling expansion of the object’s boundaries." Gabriele Hoad" Artist and writer based in Exeter. art@gabriellehoad.co.uk| http://www.an.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/1689431 Venue detail:
22 George Place
22 George Place, Stonehouse, Plymouth PL1 3NY
http://www.artcornwall.org/features/British_Art_Show_Fringe.htm
www.vessel2011.com 

Sculpture:Found Objects on Other

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:48 W x 70.9 H x 112.2 D in

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