Works
About
As an ontological principle, a thing cannot exist beyond the word that names it. A fundamental relationship subsists between both: by the act of the verb, matter was (and continues to be) created. Quoting Borges: the name is archetype of the thing / in the letters of ‘rose’ is the rose / and the whole Nile in the word ‘Nile’.
The present exhibition of Sebastian Moldovan belongs to the Lacanian register of the symbolic, the one that can only be originated through language, that is, by the act of naming things that (by law) do not yet exist. And the quote here becomes pertinent when it refers us also to the dimension of nature, source of inquiry and inspiration for the artist. What we will find herein is a compendium of the poetics that Sebastian has been developing in recent years, taking as a discursive line his bond with the natural state of things. Like in the conformation and development of thought, some works are new; others are rethought or re-edited, materialized under the circumstances compelled by the gallery space.
In an attempt to measure nature, and respecting the implicit impossibility of the act, Sebastian resorts to several mediums: sometimes through the use of contemporary technology, mainly videos; sometimes translating natural phenomena via installations with the use of somehow primary (and by current standards, laborious) technical procedures. We could also say that the creative process occurs in the form of a flow of consciousness, evident mainly in the drawings: whether records of other works (without ceasing to be it themselves), whether recreations of scenes glimpsed from some corner of the subconscious. Yet some modifications can be perceived, especially in the format, consequence of a change of habitat.
As a Borges’ Aleph, every fragment of this exhibition becomes then a reflection of all things. Mirroring some section of the world, the exercise became a synecdoche: the one of naming, therefore always creating, the whole on the part.
Text by Edisabel Marrero Tejeda, curator