CENTRAL FINE presents: The Sinking Parenthesis

 Opening Reception December 3, 8.30 PM-Midnight.

 I’ve been thinking about Martin Barre’s spray paintings from the sixties, his articulation of the gesture as punctuation and his avoidance of lyrical abstraction; that managed a poiesis that is inscribed within the body. One could see Georgia Sagri’s interest in speech as a way of handling the auditing of grammar, forms and actions; in the same way one could understand Joe Reihsen’s abstract paintings as a sum of procedures that present themselves as a body fully defined by lines, attachments and marks. An interest in punctuation is also present in the obsessive works of Tomm El-Saieh, as a sum of dots that indicate a dot’s ending, or a million clues that point out into to the next opening. Odalis Valdivieso manages all sorts of openings and enclosures, trough a sum of operations that zoom into the transportation of ink or the possibilities of a hand-made scanning; all contained in what looks like luminous holes of water, on a wall. Jiae Hwang’s abstract and calligraphic work covered by popcorn on polyester continues to enter the territory of what one can gain from translation, as textures become difficult to decipher (unless you touch them or you are a fashionista) while marking them with a sort of stuttering. Finally, in this show, my hinge and olive oil paintings, unfriendly to water, evaporate doing whatever they want at the expense of my own anticipation or the hinges’ bouncing.

 So, last night I wanted to direct this text somewhere, and my industrious subconscious produced what follows:

 The issue of the origin, or origins, cats, superstition, water and silence were present in that dream. I saw cats asking a male cat to breastfeed them. As if the dad-cat was a mother-cat but the cat had no milk. The kittens were adult cats, feeding from their motherly dad. The cat might be Martin Barre, or a reflection on man-boobs? Just guessing here.

 Next, E. and I attempted to cross a small wooden bridge, but then both started jumping on it, bringing it down. We succeeded and fell into a beautiful green lake and swam our way out. Great experience. I think we wanted to sink the bridge, and just swim surrounded by broken wood because the day was stunning. We heard the name of Aimee Bonpland, the French botanist. (Good Plant, if we were to translate it). What’s interesting is that in fact, Bonpland’s last name was a nickname given to him by his grandfather after getting word of his birth in the countryside in France. The nickname became a family name, a captcha and his sign. His origin was retold at the moment of birth.

The superstition of words/origins was left unresolved and I woke up. Now, I’m thinking about the sinking of the bridge, and how that action indicated that there wasn’t an interest in arriving/talking to anywhere/anything.

 Somehow we wrecked the parenthesis, swimming our way above the surface of abstraction and enjoying the weather. This was really taxing on us, I must say, because in a moment we had to deal with a botanist, sinking a bridge, swimming nicknames, last-names, plants, plans, water and signs.  All was brought together by that word that is getting on my nerves: Gesture. The gesture was an oneiric passive aggressive one, but I think we had no choice as the cats aligned to stop us, on the other side of the bridge, fully developed of course, thanks to the milk of their single mom-dad.

Diego Singh

Central Fine, #2. 6865 Bay Drive # 6, Miami Beach, Fl, 33141. www.centralfine.com. diego@centralfine.com. 917-306-1218