Time is the enemy, the first solo show by Andrea Galvani at Galería CURRO, consists of mixed media sculptures, a site-specific neon installation, and a large-scale photographic series, all immersed into a dark background.
With this gray capsule, the artist guides us through the strange fabrics of time, which he uses as sculptural raw material, referring to its ability to morph and change, to speed up and slow down.
The Italian artist recent exhibition transforms a gallery space in Guadalajara, Mexico, to bring art and science together, creating a multicultural conversation. Istituto Marangoni Firenze student in Arts Curating Marines Salcedo Gutierrez is now giving us a grand tour.
by Marines Salcedo Gutierrez. Images courtesy of the artist and CURRO.
When walking into the room, the eye is caught by the radiance of an illuminating group of neon lights (2018-2021). These ten sculptures hang from the ceiling above like clouds, rising like spikes from concrete bases on the floor, or spreading across the gallery wall.
Composed of handblown Murano glass and handmade metal structures, Galvani’s site-specific neon installation takes shape as mathematical equations and scientific diagrams.1 They refer to nature’s unseen forces, the universe’s deepest mysteries, and envision a new cosmology. Behind each calculation is a constellation, layers of knowledge and history, intersecting numbers and symbols that mathematically map ongoing processes of scientific inquiries.
In the middle of the room, a column of books stacked on top of each other extends over three meters high. Column on Varieties of Oblivion [Essay on the Modification of Clouds] (2021) consists of volumes of scientific theories that have become obsolete, fallen into oblivion, or turned into later theses. With texts written as early as the sixth century BC and as recent as the twentieth century, this piece embodies the escalation of our time through thousands of years of intellectual labor, which uplift the evolution of our species. The title of each book is seen on the side, and ranges from all scientific categories and languages.
Scientific books, steel, and magnets Unique segment of infinity column, 300 x 24 x 30 cm. Courtesy of the artist and CURRO
Lastly, a large set of photographs (Time is the Enemy, 2018-2021)depicts professional skydivers, caught in the camera eye while free falling across time, suspended in between the border of day and night, elevation and fall.
“When we look at the sky,” the exhibition introduction reads, “we are looking at the invisible stratification of time. Layers of different temporalities, superimposed, running at different speeds. The idea of uniform time inherited over millennia is an illusion. Time passes differently in the mountains than it does at the sea; it goes faster in our heads than it does at our feet.”2
The exhibition introduces the question “do we exist in time or does time exist in us?”. It ignites a reflection that all art spaces can look to, addressing how time moves differently during an aesthetical experience.
It is both about the inside and the outside. Inside and outside our own self, the artworks, and the gallery, sparking a conversation that expands beyond the gallery walls, up till the sky.
Andrea Galvani is an Italian artist. He lives and works in New York and Mexico City.
Marines Salcedo Gutierrez is an undergraduate student in Arts Curating at Istituto Marangoni Firenze.
1. Which are Square Root of -1, Calculus, Abiogenesis, Gravity, Boltzmann Change in Entropy, Chaos Theory, Time Evolution and Geometry of the Universe, Planetary Motion, and Noether’s Theorem.
2. Galvani A. (2021), Time is the Enemy, Exhibition Booklet, Galería Curro, p. 13 [Online. Accessed 07.02.22 https://galeriacurro.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AG-PUB1.pdf]
