Alexandre Arrechea “The Map and the Fact”
Magnan Metz Gallery
This event has ended.
The often overlooked study and its relationship to the realized artwork have always been of significant importance to Alexandre Arrechea. The two co-existed in the same space; it’s the methodology that shows the natural process in creating the artwork. Traditionally the first stands as the matrix of the second. For this exhibition, however, Arrechea has turned the tables. The artist explains, “With The Map and the Fact I intend to rearrange this relationship with the objective to ask questions of our reality so the drawing in this project becomes a structure closer to the language of a map or a graphical representation of a given ‘territory’. The object is related to this simply through the construction of a section of that map.”
Arrechea examines this idea from a mathematical, existential, and historical perspective creating a visual metaphor for Pre-Colombian cartography and how its “placement” of one continent over another was simply a construct used to illustrate power. The Map (7 ½ x 16 feet), a four panel watercolor lays out all four hemispheres and their continents on a blue that is reminiscent of the color of the sea. The land forms are familiar but not easily discernible against the rippling surface of the oceans.
From this drawing emerges The Fact¸ a sculptural installation in a sun-drenched yellowish orange hue. The sculpture is positioned as a parenthesis, or fragment, of the drawing. Although it owes its existence to the drawing, it is independent. The viewer is left to consider the complexities of the fragment vs. the whole, global versus local or vice versa. The small concentric circles floating atop the surface of the sculpture contain photographs of a single drop of water and honey representing the totality of life and all its sweetness.
Media
Schedule
from September 13, 2014 to October 12, 2014
Opening Reception on 2014-09-12 from 18:00 to 20:00