South likes: Andra Ursuta at Peep-Hole, Milan

South likes: Andra Ursuta at Peep-Hole, Milan
Fartchitectures
Peep-Hole, Milan, Italy
30 January – 8 March, 2014

With subtle irony and a bunch of to-the-point sculptures, Andra Ursuta dedicates her show at Peephole to the deflation of the severe and rhetorical aesthetics of propaganda. The debunking of a serious and authoritative image of power begins with the two large sculptures dominating Peep-Hole’s exhibition space, Soft Power 1 and 2. Reproducing the shape of two monumental fists, the firm aura of their figure is lampooned by their materiality: made of patchworkish coloured fabric, they are kept up by sticks and maintained in shape by yellow fans, which inflate and deflate them at an alternate rhythm. The referral to the fart contained in the show’s title is as well echoed by the sculptures’ title, addressing mechanisms of domination and the magniloquent imagery casted by the symbol of the fist, from communist visual language, to its use in propagandistic public monuments. As a counterpoint to this vision, with the maquettes of German war bunkers another different model of architecture is taken into account, even if significantly low-scaled. A Worm’s Dream House 2, 3, and 4, reproduce the intimidating appearance and materiality of war architecture, playing it down and downsizing it to the point where it comfortably fits for the life of worms. Visual punchline of the exhibition is the sculpture Broken Obelisk, representing the defeated figure of an anthropomorphous obelisk, sitting on a chair and staring depressingly at the window. The monumental function of the obelisk, be it the celebration of democracy of the Washington Monument or the colonization trophy of the Luxor Obelisk in Paris, is portrayed here with the desperate attitude of a broken leader.

Michelangelo Corsaro

http://www.peep-hole.org/ph/andra-ursuta/