Empty 2019

Rodrigo Franzao made this unnamed work with I'm guessing found materials; strips of color that, as they stack up, shift from darks to the electric blues and greens. You can just see the hand of the artist in the slight wobble of the stacked rows, as though the whole thing might ripple and breathe. I love to see what artists do with the humble materials at hand. Here, the reflective surface of each element creates an optical shimmer that is just mesmerizing. Look closely, and you can see a matrix of pins or needles holding the whole surface together. It’s like a drawing made of light, or light made solid. There’s a conversation here with the light works of artists like Felix Gonzalez-Torres, or even the material investigations of someone like Tara Donovan, but Franzao is clearly on his own trip. Art is always this ongoing conversation, right? Where artists remix the past to create something new and unexpected. And isn't it amazing how something so materially simple can create such a complex and evocative experience?