In the Presence of Absences

“For all representation is, by definition, a representation of an absent object”

– Eduardo Grüner (1)

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The disc of dried earth, a still-life of divergent cracks and fissures.

Soil and precious ores borrowed from the earth; an unsolicited collaboration.           

Its temporal fragilities here replaced, here supplanted. 

(This disc of dried earth exists no longer; dust to dust.)

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The incised image, graphic by nature, and thus a reduction; a distillation of the essential. 

An allegorical render of something other; something elsewhere, removed or missing.

(This tracery is both real and unreal; a consideration of what is and what is not; what is stated and what is implied. It exists, tenuously.)

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For it is the space betwixt the notes which makes the music. It is the cracks between that evidence the life within.

Artworks:

1. [Bronze cast earth disc, earth]

2. [Earth painting with raw umber pigment and grated charcoal, Laser-cut white paper, earth]

3. [Laser-cut paper on opposite walls]

(1) Eduardo Grüner, ‘La invisibilidad estratégica, o la redención política de los vivos: Violencia política y representación estética en el Siglo de las Desapariciones’, in Ana Longoni and Gustavo Bruzzone (ed.), El Siluetazo, Buenos Aires: Adriana Hidalgo, 2008, p. 285 as quoted in mnemoscape, issue no.2.

Abbie Read  In the Presence of Absences  2020. Installation view [1.] Bronze cast earth disc, earth.

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Abbie Read  In the Presence of Absences  2020. Installation view [2.] Earth painting with raw umber pigment and grated charcoal, Laser-cut white paper, earth

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Abbie Read  In the Presence of Absences  2020. Installation view [3.] Laser-cut paper on opposite walls