Extrakestrakos: Pieralli)(Favi

Return, 2009. INSTALLATION SHOT.

A work of art has a particularly strong impact on its audience when they find themselves fully interacting with the piece. The glamour of Extrakestrakos is not only found in the blast of color and mixed media, but from the new perspective the installation provides.

Suspance 3, 2008.

As you enter the exhibit you are encouraged to stand on Suspance 3 and look at the explosion of Return ahead of you.  Gazing downwards into a spiraling splat of shapes, colors, and textures you find yourself in the piece, as opposed to standing a comfortable distance away from the work to admire it. It is common sense to refrain from touching artwork in a gallery or museum and even in the street, however, when Extrakestrakos was being installed a few coworkers asked for my help to position Suspance 3 in the center of the floor. By habit I was extremely cautious about handling the piece as delicately as I could. I was caught off guard when after it had been properly positioned they started to walk across it! Eventually they explained to me that this was a carpet and was meant to be walked on. I carefully placed my right foot on the edge of the piece and made my way to the center. First looking down I felt a falling sensation; it was as if I was being swallowed by what looked like a hole in the floor. Yet as I looked up I stopped falling and was suspended in this galaxy that Saverio Pieralli and Valentina Favi had created. From the center of Suspance 3 you can observe the whole exhibit as though you have become part of it, or as Valentina Favi describes it, "Everything, whether it realizes it or not, is always connected with the whole. The more something is open to interaction, the more it can enjoy being connected"1.

Pieralli)(Favi choose to use mixed media that resembles the textures of materials such as wood, brick, marble, and stone which can be closely associated with the raw building materials of strong structures such as homes and bridges. The presence of pencil lines drawn on the walls surface, in conjunction with the concept of bridges, leads me to believe that this galaxy unites even the most dissimilar objects, "…thus proving that the universe is ultimately a seamless web"2. It is a network of mixed planets that each plays their own role in this diverse supernova, while sharing a common origin.

Left to Right: Gisterix and Its Sister (2009), Spher Spirals (1958), Study for Stars (1948).

Gisterix and Its Sister reminds me of an optical illusion. It is fascinating how the artists were able to build a maze of planks so twisted around the centered structure that ultimately prevents the viewer from distinguishing where the protrusions begin and end. It is almost as if the wood is in orbit around a misshapen marble planet. This theme of continuing forms in concurrence with optical illusions is reminiscent of M.C. Escher's woodcuts, Study for Stars and Spher Spirals.

The subject of the never-ending object appears within this exhibit many times. The repetition of circular, orbiting figures and the significance of the overall galactic quality of the exhibition suggests the notion of birth and rebirth. I learned this summer, when visiting the Hayden Planetarium, that when a star reaches the end of its life it bursts and emits new matter that will later form new stars. The Return may be interpreted as the birth and rebirth of a star that explodes releasing an assortment of new life that forms the cosmos Extrakestrakos.

1. Favi, Valentina. (Translation by Ernesto Mardones).

2. de la Ossa, Ana Maria. Extrakestrakos Press Release. 2010.

Photographs by Suzy Storr.
Woodcut reproductions courtesy of the M.C. Escher Official Website at http://www.mcescher.com/.