IMPOSSIBLE - Joëlle Morosoli
in collaboration with Rolf Morosoli
October 1 - November 1, 2015
The Chapelle Historique du Bon-Pasteur is hosting a new solo exhibition by Joëlle Morosoli entitled Impossible. It consists of four separately standing pieces. Although each piece has an individual title: Impossible 1, Impossible 2, Impossible 3, and Impossible 4, they are presented as integral parts of a single sculptural installation. This installation represents a departure from the artist's major body of work which consists of conceptual sculptural installations that investigate the repeated motion of sculptural parts in space. The present exhibition is stationary, nothing moves, all the sculptural elements are caught in a single artistic gesture.
Morosoli's installation is basically a drawing in space. There are the lines of the ladder-like objects, the lines of the shadows of those objects on the exhibition room's walls, ceiling, floor, as well as the line drawings of either human beings or angelic figures. The personages are trying to ascent their respective ladders, but are unable to do so. Even the sideways movements appear to be restricted, as their waving and outstretched arms (or angelic wings?) seem to suggest.
In one piece, clearly an angel is portrayed, caught within his ladder that prevents his ascension. It is actually a cupid, judging by the arrows that cage him in. (Photo just below.)
In the text displayed by the entrance to the exhibition hall (see below to the left, click to enlarge to read it), the artist comments on her sculpture and states that the ladder is a symbol of ascension, of an infinite progression. She also brings in focus the reference to the Biblical Jacob's ladder that leads to the celestial paradise:
"And he [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it." Genesis 28:12
The Morosoli installation seems to be about the general human condition, the peoples' aspirations to achieve something magnificent, to reach some apogees and the greatness of the spirit, to make the jump from the material Earth into the spheres of spiritual completion and enlightenment, and failing to do so. The work also appears to make a broader statement on the inability to reach spirituality simply through artistic creation. The art is only that - art, nothing more and nothing less. It functions within the realms of the aesthetics, the forms, shapes, colours, and ideas, even when it tries to portray spiritual aspirations or human emotions. In the case of the Impossible, it is a feeling of a tremendous frustration of being imprisoned within one's private ladder even when attempting to get higher and higher, and coming to a realisation that one is caught, and that one's ladder does not lead anywhere that one anticipated or imagined.
Although Morosoli's previous sculptures had moving parts (totally absent in Impossible), regardless of the movement they examined and portrayed they were equally not going or climbing anywhere. Their movement was caught (imprisoned) within the sculptural concept and from, as well as within the exhibition room, when the moving shadows of the moving sculptural elements were perceived as also being a part of the installation.
Click on images to enlarge them.
Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.
The Exhibition Invitation. (Free admission).
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