Helsinki Art Museum, Finland / 2018
Photo by Laureline Tilkin
In the video installation “There was no thought, but a thrive for the visibility of something yet to be named” the artist approaches her every day through a series of chosen images which refer to gestures for unspoken intentions. The images are selected from different sources and mediums: artworks such as “Fall” from Bas Jan Ader, and “Leap into the void by Yves Klein; films such as “Steamboat Bill Jr.” by Chas F. Reisner and Buster Keaton, and a still from “Au revoir les enfants” directed by Louis Malle. A watercolour painting made by Patricia Borja Osorio of the photograph of Duntroon Castle by Simon Marsden, a Black and White photograph by Truan Munro, and a collection of images from Google Images of houses on fire.
The artist keeps a close relation to all these images by keeping them visible in her studio. She continues her every day, and the images pop every time on the corner of her eye creating a constant reminder of that which seems to speak to her in each image, but which she is unable to name or pinpoint in the form of a definition. It is then after these images have lingered on the wall that a gesture within them conforms a narrative text which becomes a dialogue. The voice that speaks over the video is conveying an experience that lingers in the personal relationship between the artist and those images which attempt to make something visible. They thrive for the visibility of something yet to be named.
Regarding gesture
I don’t know what gesture means. I use the word, and my head seems to understand something, but whenever I attempt to write a definition for it, it always seems as I am writing an unmovable statement as if I needed to be right in what I am writing; as if I would need to describe truthfully what a gesture is. But I never will.
I stand at the threshold of meanings, trying my best not to fall into a pit from which I will be unable to depart, trying not to marry certainty and leave wonder be my partner for today and forever more. We will grow old together and speculate about things, blobs, and unified formations that people seem to name to make sense. I have written my vows, and so I read:
I promise you to circumvallate as much as possible upon every subject until repetition becomes a forgotten haiku.
I promise you to ask for things, blobs, and whenever possible point and avoid language.
If requested to go in depth upon a subject, I promise to use my face to convey every possible attempt of statement that will forever remain at the will of your interpretation.
I promise you to stare mindlessly, with mouth half open every time you ask for an answer.
I promise to look for birds, planes, flying beach balls, car crashes, and life mishaps to whom I can turn the attention to whenever the following sentence is spoken: “What do you think of…”
I promise you to get lost as often as possible. You know me, I will panic and run for the switch, but I don’t care, for whatever switch I find, there is always a door to see and walk through.
I promise you to always open the lid of the pot whenever I hear the first popcorn make a pop.
I promise you this, and nothing more, or maybe I will, who knows…
https://www.hamhelsinki.fi/en/exhibition/andrea-coyotzi-borja/
andreacoyotziborja.com 