#496 Balancing Act

This work features an egg placed on top of the panel in a small indentation.

See a video of the production here and a presentation here.

The horrors of war are often described as a brutal and material reality, and the hope for a peaceful future as something fleeting, like a dream or an idea. Something to be created, as opposed to the violence that exists in the natural state. But in this work, the egg, a symbol of hope and potential, is placed outside the image and, thus, in my interpretation, outside the realm of language. The pointed shape, reminiscent of a missile or a bullet, dominates the pictorial field and is expressed as a sign. Perhaps hope instead belongs to materiality, involuntarily in the body, even if only as a struggle for survival. And violence, on the other hand, is an act of language, something that is consciously chosen.

The series features works with an appendix placed on top of the work or close to it. This object is exterior to the image plane, the illusionary "window" in the picture, but is still an intrinsic part of the whole. It connects or makes visible the two dimensions of an artwork - its inner logic and its relation to its surrounding.
The title references the famous Coca-Cola campaign and Immanuel Kant's notion of the thing in itself. It means that subjects can only experience the phenomena as they present themselves through perception. It is always fundamentally different from what the things are outside language boundaries - in themselves.

Res Ipsa is a compilation of works made by an act shaping the filler once it is prepared inside the frame. The works thus function as a recording device and give a statement of the event taking place while the filler was still wet.

Res Ipsa is Latin for "the thing itself" and is part of the juridical term "Res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), used when an injury or accident in itself clearly shows who is responsible, such as an instrument left inside a body after surgery.