Through
ceramic sculptures, videos and photographs, the artist outlines a
discontinuous narration,starting from her own body and linked to
space exploration. Precisely, the works of the exhibition revolve
around the relationship of the artist’s body with her work
materials, essentially the ceramics. Through the performative link
and the double meaning between subject and material, between
structure and mass, Teresa Solar reflects on concepts such as
control, resistance, a definitely precarious balance of sense and
accident.
The
title of the exhibition, Ground
Control,
has a double meaning. On one hand it is a direct reference to the
material, ground or clay, and the pressure exerted on it when working
on the potter’s wheel. The body of the artist fights against the
resistance that the material offers to control it and, in turn, this
effort makes it become matter. On the other hand, on a large scale,
it has a reading related to the space race: the ground control
monitors the takeoff of a rocket into space.
The
idea of tense balance between oneself and the world is present in the
videos of the exhibition. In Being
a person you did not know you were,
we see a puppet that adopts the role of the divided adult, of the
unknown who is born in us, who turns us in foreigners inside our body
and invalidates the certainty of the outside world. Continuing with
the idea of the divided subject, in the video Ground
control,
the artist is transformed into the clay ball that turns on the
potter’s wheel. The image of the turning body is accompanied with
fragmented stories that connect the accident of the space shuttle
Columbia, exploding into pieces due to a failure in its protective
skin, with the injuries suffered by the artist herself.
This
double relationship is also present in the sculptures. The pressure
of the metal bars alludes to the process of creation, remembering, in
turn, the pile of rubble of an accident, in which the ceramic becomes
the body of the subject. Ceramics allow us to emphasize the contrast
between the primitivism of a material and a technique as old as
humanity, with the technological sophistication of the ceramic skins
that cover the rockets.
Teresa
Solar Abboud
Ground Control
24/03/2017 –
03/06/2017
