àngels viladomiu

Site-specific intervention.

Trees: Pinus pinea, Cedrus atlantica.

Materials: Marine plywood (Okoume)

Dimensions of large saw: 300 x 200 x 4 cm, medium saw: 1’60 x 2’10 x 4 cm, 6 small saws: 65 cm diameter.

 

“Àngels Viladomiu’s installations also pass through the ambiguous and slippery territory of these approaches. The wood saws, which by way of strange hybrids, grow from the trunks of these trees, are objects that can immediately be identified, but are also foreign elements, "contrived prosthesis", as she herself has called them. The object will never be able to carry out the function for which it has been designed, (...) and consequently, its intrusion will not be but a mere element that distorts reality.

According to Jean Baudrillard, "The visual trick is never to be confused with the real thing, but to produce a simulation, with full awareness of the game and artifice". This stratagem allows for the insertion of doubt in the face of the supposed evidence of reality, the introduction of some confusion, and promotes a point of disorder, all with the aim of subverting that which at first sight would be unambiguous.

It is, therefore, about a eulogy to simulation, a questioning of appearances, an inversion of the established rules, taking advantage of the symbolic efficacy that is incorporated in any object, and all these manoeuvres tinted with a certain ironic nuance.

Theirs tends to be a process of forced intrusion, so that eventually the intrusive object becomes an integral element of another situation, in this case the trees. It provokes and dispels misunderstandings by using the ambiguity of the faire semblant and passes in a kind of liminal situation that results in the viewer identifying with the evidence of the proposal and in return being surprised by the impossibility of it.

A macro-cosmic vision of the objects-the mountains-is imposed on a natural setting, in a kind of cult to the possible banality of the everyday object, now converted into an artistic monument. A monument that does not commemorate but seeks “to do and think big”, to get closer to the fantastic and drive new conceptual hypotheses. It constructs the objects as though they were seen through a magnifying lens, as if they had emerged from Gulliver’s pockets and the viewers were tiny inhabitants of the imaginary country Lilliput. As in Jonathan Swift’s novel, we should not let ourselves get carried away by the apparent pleasantness of an adventure trip, because after the amusement a fierce satire about the bad habits of Humanity can spread”. Glòria Picazo, Natural de naturals, 1997.