Dimensions: displayed: 3730 x 3763 x 4510 mm
Copyright: © Miroslaw Balka | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: Miroslaw Balka's "Oasis (C.D.F.)" presents a sparse, almost ghostly arrangement of found wood. Editor: My first impression is one of poignant emptiness – a suggestion of shelter that fails to comfort. Curator: Indeed, the work's power lies in its structural simplicity, the way Balka employs negative space to create a disquieting sense of absence. The interplay of horizontal and vertical lines forms a skeletal architecture, almost a diagram of a house. Editor: The symbolic weight of the house is undeniable, representing home, security, and the self. But its fragmented form, the weathered texture of the wood… they evoke themes of loss, decay, and perhaps the fragile nature of memory itself. The small trough filled with earth reads as a grave, a symbol of mortality within this imagined home. Curator: Precisely, the materiality speaks volumes. It's in the distressed surfaces, the subtle variations in tone, that we find the conceptual rigor of the piece. Editor: Ultimately, it's a powerful statement on the precariousness of our foundations, both physical and psychological. Curator: A compelling intersection of form and feeling.
Comments
Join the conversation
Join millions of artists and users on Artera today and experience the ultimate creative platform.
Oasis (C.D.F.) is an installation composed of thirteen wooden parts, one of which is lined with a small metal tray in which sits an electric water pump. Two long, parallel boards are mounted vertically onto the wall, at the top of which a further two lines made of three planks meet in an apex at the center. This frame defines the boundaries of the installation and its resemblance to a house-like structure designates the arrangement as a domestic space. A floral metal decoration is fixed to the lower part of the left parallel plank, and is echoed by a second flowery motif that is drawn on to the corresponding surface of the right plank. Mounted on the wall slightly above eye level within the frame of the house-like arrangement is a wooden container lined with metal and filled with leaves, above which sits an elliptical crescent made from wood. An old-fashioned drainpipe extends down to the floor from the leaf-filled container and ends in a small metal trough. Adjacent to the metal trough is a wooden box that has been partially filled with pine needles, which has elliptical crescents at its head and foot, constituting a form that is suggestive of a bed or cradle. A segment of wooden doorsill is positioned on the floor parallel to the house-like frame, approximately four-and-a-half meters from the wall, denoting the threshold of the structure.
CollectMore like this
