Spotter - Tension #1, 2018 Sculpture

A spotter is someone to assist you when performing a difficult exercise (at the gym). Part of Palestra, 2018 (installation) - A body of work which explores Body Building(1). Like a double allegory of the work of the artist: the body - to understand «a tool» - and the building - as a site, referencing the space, the architectural and physical construction of any man-made form. Palestra is inspired from Kathy Acker’s essay: Against ordinary language, the language of the body, from 1992 (1). I wanted to picture a parallel between the effort of the athlete and the work of the artist, therefore, I started to sculpt «effort» as it is, a form of physicality. I am rather fond of the idea that effort appears from within its own gesture. A relationship - a reciprocity between the body and the matter which becomes a physical manifestation of the effort through labour. Just like the athlete, the dissatisfaction within the work pushes the artist to burn out, to sacrifice, until an everlasting transformation.