"Plataforma" exhibition at Rodeo.
12th -14th September, 2025.
12th -14th September, 2025.
“Altar”, 2025
Ceramic, metal and plastic figures covered with silver leaf, on a 19th-century wooden pedestal
82 x 29 x 29 cm
Ceramic, metal and plastic figures covered with silver leaf, on a 19th-century wooden pedestal
82 x 29 x 29 cm
“Plataforma Support”, 2025
Industrial polystyrene stained with charcoal, metal hooks
152 x 88 x 17 cm
Industrial polystyrene stained with charcoal, metal hooks
152 x 88 x 17 cm
“Plataforma”, 2025
Giclée print, framed with wood
23 x 30,5 cm
Giclée print, framed with wood
23 x 30,5 cm
Unto thee I speak, elder brethren, who cometh before me from on high and from within. Ye were long ago tutored at the blast of the humanist trumpet, that ye shouldst ever seek the meaning of all things that enter thine eyes, presuming ever a will to represent or to signify, and thereafter the initiatory trial of drawing forth an hidden interpretation, as though it were the secret stone or the maiden locked within the sealed palace. “What meaneth this? Whither wouldst thou go with that? Who is he? To what dost thou refer? Where dost thou stand?”—thus still crieth thy senescent birdlike heads. Be not deceived: if thou yearnest for answers, it is not for the honor of any secular doctrine of salvation that thou mightest uphold, but rather to swallow the meager draught of oxytocin thy withered frame may yet distill. And unto me—whether by fortune or by bane—fallen into this uneasy interregnum, hath come the thankless burden to remind thee: with the passing of generations and the swiftness of the media, this yearning hath waxed beyond measure, and the flood of answers hath sundered the balance betwixt interpretive power and signifying token, until the very plataforma itself was broken.
Upon that plataforma now dwell the orphans of the holocaust of meaning, who boast of their freedom from it, fulfilling the prophecy long ago spoken by the sages of postmodern lore. Freed they are from the affliction of over-interpretation, yet do they bear the Atlantean weight of yearning for a communal life that never was—like proto-sigmas in a faded scroll of pilgrimage. A fellowship, aye, yet of souls each solitary, bereft of meta-narratives to gird their lives; a condition that must needs give rise once more to the metastasis of interpretation, weaving anew the ouroboric samsara of the mind. Thus is it the very exhaustion of meaning that bestoweth a higher meaning upon these three ready-mades, gathered here as a wunderkamera for thine eyes.
No pedigree nor ancient charter is here to lend warrant. None is needed. For the works do utter in their eloquent silence, manifest in the stillness of furniture and the base matter of toil. By virtue of pure aesthesis, such matter transcendeth its common purpose, distilling from its estrangement a new passion of the senses, and serveth as the plataforma support. Yet its service abideth unaltered: it upholdeth still, though now it beareth naught save the bare need to bear.
And lo, in the void of context, the engine of mystery runneth full. All seemeth but refuse cast into the desert of the real by some unfeeling hand, alike in its material and in its archetype—set forth as a visual archaeology of a world post upon post upon post, a suspended hour that is a time after time, perchance apocalyptic, wherein all magick is spent. Yet even in this forsaken hollow shineth forth the metaphysical absolute: the very glow of phantasmal images with their twilight halos or with lightning’s flash. For it was once spoken: the surface is the place of the event; not in the depths are deeds fulfilled, but upon the face thereof.
And amidst this orchard of withered trees—mayhap at its very heart—there standeth an altar, bearing four relics of that ideal realm of meaning where all did once align, awaiting interpretation. Younger brethren, these were once named by thy elders: passage, abyss, threshold, and ascension. Forevermore are they frozen in vile metal that sought to dignify them; now are they but empty shells of what they were in ages past. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails. Jr 10, 3-4 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. 1 Jn 5, 21
Exhibition text by Marc O’Callaghan.
Upon that plataforma now dwell the orphans of the holocaust of meaning, who boast of their freedom from it, fulfilling the prophecy long ago spoken by the sages of postmodern lore. Freed they are from the affliction of over-interpretation, yet do they bear the Atlantean weight of yearning for a communal life that never was—like proto-sigmas in a faded scroll of pilgrimage. A fellowship, aye, yet of souls each solitary, bereft of meta-narratives to gird their lives; a condition that must needs give rise once more to the metastasis of interpretation, weaving anew the ouroboric samsara of the mind. Thus is it the very exhaustion of meaning that bestoweth a higher meaning upon these three ready-mades, gathered here as a wunderkamera for thine eyes.
No pedigree nor ancient charter is here to lend warrant. None is needed. For the works do utter in their eloquent silence, manifest in the stillness of furniture and the base matter of toil. By virtue of pure aesthesis, such matter transcendeth its common purpose, distilling from its estrangement a new passion of the senses, and serveth as the plataforma support. Yet its service abideth unaltered: it upholdeth still, though now it beareth naught save the bare need to bear.
And lo, in the void of context, the engine of mystery runneth full. All seemeth but refuse cast into the desert of the real by some unfeeling hand, alike in its material and in its archetype—set forth as a visual archaeology of a world post upon post upon post, a suspended hour that is a time after time, perchance apocalyptic, wherein all magick is spent. Yet even in this forsaken hollow shineth forth the metaphysical absolute: the very glow of phantasmal images with their twilight halos or with lightning’s flash. For it was once spoken: the surface is the place of the event; not in the depths are deeds fulfilled, but upon the face thereof.
And amidst this orchard of withered trees—mayhap at its very heart—there standeth an altar, bearing four relics of that ideal realm of meaning where all did once align, awaiting interpretation. Younger brethren, these were once named by thy elders: passage, abyss, threshold, and ascension. Forevermore are they frozen in vile metal that sought to dignify them; now are they but empty shells of what they were in ages past. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails. Jr 10, 3-4 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. 1 Jn 5, 21
Exhibition text by Marc O’Callaghan.