V

An ancient legend holds that Pythagoras discovered the secrets of harmony when he
visited a forge and heard five men hammering with five hammers. Four of the hammers
had proportional measurements, and rang together in beautiful harmony, but the fifth
hammer made a discordant sound, so Pythagoras threw it away.1 In V, I am honoring that
fifth hammer with a collective exhibition that points toward conceptual harmony but
continually defies it.
In visualizing V as a collective exhibition, I searched for a disharmony that would free me
from the burden of a static theoretical selection. Every subject these artists present are
related to each other, but the multiplicity of subjects creates an imbalance that presses the
viewer to walk around the gallery space without providing a comfortable place to rest
mentally. The fifth hammer of this exhibition is whomever the viewer chooses, but it
always acts as the disruption of the conceptual balance, forging a story that changes with
every step the viewer takes.
The artists at V happen to be women and happen to be from Argentina, but they could be
from anywhere. Elena Dahns Anillo (Ring) playfully evokes the human body as it
explores the eroticism of shapes; we even notice that the material she uses has a porous,
skin-like texture. Dolores Furtados Wall and Bended sculptures are viscerally sexual,
sometimes resembling a human body turned inside out. The erotic geometry in Adriana
Minolitis Rosa (Pink) and Espejo (Mirror) loudly proclaims ownership of the sexual
female body. Alejandra Seebers chachachains are colorful hanging chains that pile up in
a disordered mess as if left over from last nights party. Marcela Sinclairs Fantasmas del
Caribe (Caribbean Phantoms) evokes the experience of a hot, humid Caribbean summer,
but through the use of negative space.
While it might not be possible to speak of a universal or global aesthetic in contemporary
art, the subjects these artists address relate to any viewer, regardless of their sex or place
of origin. The subjects are, in a sense, universal. At the same time, these women are
unique individuals each of them has a particular view, a particular subject, seen from a
particular experience. Dahn, Furtado, Minoliti, Seeber and Sinclair are each very specific
about what kind of issue and materiality they are working with.
In V, difference is the creative force that causes an otherwise heterogeneous system to
search for a new reference point. There is no claim about what is true or more valid, there
is no perfect place to see the works. The pastel colors that dominate the show only
highlight the differences among the pieces. Whatever other commonalities the viewer
finds beneath these differences, they are all his own.2 V is disharmony that works.
V is an assemblage of multiplicities, subject to manifold articulations and numerous
interpretations; it is an arrangement of intensities of subjects and material gestures. V asks
1
Heller-Roazen, Daniel. The Fifth Hammer: Pythagoras and the Disharmony of the World.
(Cambridge, MA: Zone Books, 2011).
2
Michel Foucault. Theatrum Philosophicum, in Mimesis, Masochism and Mime. The Politics of
Theatricality in Contemporary French Thought, Timothy Murray, ed., (Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press, 1997), 227.
the spectator to envision a new order, again and again, from the moment she first enters
the gallery.