Galeria Fortes Vilaça is pleased to present an exhibition by Iran do Espírito Santo. The artist is showing a large-scale installation made with gigantic sheets of glass, a group of stone sculptures, and an installation entitled Diffusion. The works are all being made especially for this show.
The installation untitled (open box) is composed of six large glass panels, individual and independent, that lie against the walls and on the floor of the gallery. The panels are placed in a manner similar to a box that has been opened and that could virtually close, circumscribing a space. The work is a direct comment on the tenuous relation that exists between recognizing a concrete object and observing the abstract form of its independent parts. The scale of the installation dialogues with the gallery space, relating the unfolded box with the "white cube" that surrounds it.
The group of sculptures entitled Debris represents fragments of a brick wall. Each of the sculptures is constructed from a single block of stone (Pietra di Tuoro, a light grey stone from the Umbria region in Italy.) Even though they are wholesome units, these sculptures give an impression of fragmentation. The title Debris is an ironic name for an object that is totally controlled, that denies and defies the ideas of disaster and chance, like a desire for control and order within chaos. This desire for the omnipotence of the mind, for the idea's pure materialization, is recurrent in this artist's work.
In the installation Diffusion in Five Parts, five everyday light bulbs are reproduced in solid stainless steel and placed on white porcelain fixtures as if they were real light bulbs. Here, once again, the platonic relation between a real object and its ideal form is explored.
Iran do Espírito Santo has just inaugurated an exhibition in the Sean Kelly Gallery, in New York City. In 2005, the MAXXI Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo in Rome, Italy, and The Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin will host large-scale solo shows by the artist, who has already shown his work in countless institutions in Brazil, the U.S., and Europe, as well as representing Brazil in the 48th Venice Biennial.
