The spent blood of all my stars - Devotions VIII 2007

Gian Maria Tosatti created this scene, “The spent blood of all my stars - Devotions VIII”, with the kind of care and attention we usually give to making paintings. This piece, with its lone chair and scattered debris, captures something about the process of making art itself – the studio as a site of creation and also of potential failure. The room has the atmosphere of a space that has been left to decay, it's an image of abandonment. The eye is drawn to the torn fragments scattered on the floor, little moments of intense action. Are they calendar pages? Playing cards? It's impossible to say for sure. This composition reminds me of Mike Kelley's installations, which share a similar interest in subverting traditional notions of beauty and exploring the darker sides of human experience. Like Kelley, Tosatti embraces ambiguity, allowing multiple interpretations to coexist within the same work.