An object altered in form into what is it transformed? How does the surrounding space blend with the space of the object itself? After all, form and space are similar concepts, mutually intertwining; the former conveys a definite vision, and the latter hints toward boundless vastness, but nevertheless they are two notions that both define a dimension. Applied in a meditation in art, they relate to both the object itself and the content by manifesting themselves in a continuous exchange.
Sacha Kanah, “Grex”, installation view, curated by PROGETTO LUDOVICO, Fondazione ICA Milano, Milano. Ph. Michela Pedranti, Courtesy Fondazione ICA Milano and the artist
The new art project Grex by Sacha Kanah (Milan, Italy, 1981) set up in the project room of Fondazione Ica in Milan, curated by PROGETTO LUDOVICO, continues on the path taken by the artist who investigates the material, but above all the space in relation to the artwork itself. In Grex, the works on display are industrial tanks from a dyehouse, which the artist has carefully cleaned externally – so white and immaculate as to verge on transparency – and from which he has drained all the air. The industrial tools mutate into cloud-white, opalescent vacuum sculptures in a desecrating act in which the object is simultaneously “destroyed”, reformed and made alien. The artist governs this process of deformation through a constant study of chemicals and plastic materials aimed at achieving a result, namely milky, abstract structures containing hazy silhouettes. The effect is the same as looking at an object through frosted glass, where transparency plays a key role in freeing the viewer’s imagination by allowing glimpses of soft, vaporous silhouettes.
Sacha Kanah, “Grex”, installation view, curated by PROGETTO LUDOVICO, Fondazione ICA Milano, Milano. Ph. Michela Pedranti, Courtesy Fondazione ICA Milano and the artist
In vacuum sculptures, the “draining of air” – an action interpreted as a deprivation that alters dimension or space – is an expedient that questions the distance between container and content. The transformation of matter and form changes our perception; this duality between what is physically visible and what is invisible makes the lack, the void, perceptible. In this way, the object is no longer just a concrete and material compound, but is also transformed into the subject of a process of semantizing form. The act of removing air in Sacha Kanah’s works carries reflections on the form and function of the object; if the object is deprived of its original form, it becomes implicit to its function. What change occurs when the meaning of what we are used to seeing is disrupted? This is the starting question necessary to initiate an exchange between observer and works. But Sacha Kanah’s project is not limited to this aspect; in fact, his research is elevated by analyzing his role in the process of making a work. The autonomy of these sculptures that “make themselves” proposes reasoning with respect to the traditional idea of art as the exclusive product of an artist; moreover, it suggests that the process of artistic creation reaches a point where the work is no longer merely the result of an external will (that of the author), but the result of internal, free and organic forces. The artist accepts the self-manifestation of the space of the work, as well as being intimately conquered as proof of both an imbalance and a balance between space and emptiness. True hybridization lies in the mutual absorption of one and the other.
Sacha Kanah, “Grex”, installation view, curated by PROGETTO LUDOVICO, Fondazione ICA Milano, Milano. Ph. Michela Pedranti, Courtesy Fondazione ICA Milano and the artist
The sculptures and their arrangement in the space of Fondazione Ica are perfectly conveyed by the word “grex” (title of the exhibition), which in biology indicates a cluster formed by unicellular organisms collected into a unicum. A “grex” is thus a collective body, an entity that inhabits space in an aggregative form; the definition implies that the individual sculptures rather constitute a collective space that displays a harmony of biological transformation and fusion. The concept of transformation suggests a view of the work not as something separate from the space, but as a part of it that influences and is influenced.
Irene Follador
Info:
Sacha Kanah, Grex
curated by PROGETTO LUDOVICO
13/02 – 15/03/2025
Fondazione ICA
Via Orobia, 26, 20139, Milano
ICA Milano | ICA Milano
Irene Follador (Venice, 1997) is an emerging critic and curator. She graduated first in Art History at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, and then she obtained a master’s degree at NABA – Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan. She has been collaborating with Juliet Art Magazine for a long time and, at the same time, she carries out her independent curatorial practice; her research and interest mainly tends towards works of moving images and new Media within the contemporary art system.
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