During the holidays, OUT OF SIGHT will be closed from Friday, December 24th. We invite you back on Friday, January 14th, 2022.
What makes it possible for a work of art to live simultaneously in the aesthetic and social worlds? How can we encourage or enhance a “multi-temporality” and cross the line between “common objects” and “artistic objects” without succumbing to the privatization of culture as a form of property? Questions like these are the crux of the year-long program SYMPTOMS OF THE FUTURE.
The group exhibition ANCIENT WORLDS presents works by Lala Raščić and Andrew Scott Ross. It looks at artefacts and stories from the past that have been preserved and explores potentially new meanings and knowledge derived from these residues of bygone times. The artists additionally consider the political implications of the interpretation, the use and the display of ancient objects. They offer a different perspective on their reading while challenging patriarchal and Eurocentric position.
The installation GORGO (2019) by Lala Raščić is dedicated to the mythic figure of Medusa, the Gorgon – Gorgo. Medusa’s decapitation was a violent act of colonial patriarchy, as is the appropriation of her head as decoration for shields, armor, gables, plates, cups, and buttons. Using formulas from folktale and myth such as resurrection after initiation and the arming of the hero, the video rests on the premise the Medusa’s dismembered body is made whole again, she is born again. In the video Raščić, embodies the character of the Gorgo, and dons a copper armor that is at the same time an audio instrument.
In an attempt to create a non-hierarchal display, Curatorial Drift (2021) by Andrew Scott Ross documents drawings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York’s collection moved at random with the aid of a computer algorithm. Ross’s drawings depict sculptures, paintings, and other cultural objects rendered in wireframe in uniform line weight. The results show a video of a museum’s collection drifting, with objects from history intersecting in a perpetually reimagined composition. The accompanying sound consists of multiple clips culled from audio tours found on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website and APP. These audio clips feature the official introduction to the museum’s exhibits made accessible to the public during the pandemic when visiting the physical institution was impossible. The tracks are slowed down and layered, rendering the language of the museum’s curators and conservators forceless. The now indecipherable audio tours follow the randomized curation of historical objects shaped by software.
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The exhibition ANCIEN WORLDS is part of TEN SLOTTE 5, annual audio-visual festival in Antwerp initiated by ESCAUTVILLE.
