AB7 Eclipse, Athens Biennale 2021
Curated by Omsk Social Club & Larry Ossei-Mensah
24.09.21 - 28.11.21
AB7 Eclipse
Exhibition view
Exhibition view
Inner Saboteur II, 2019
Wood, styrofoam, resin, plaster, paint, varnish, 140 x 50 x 100 cm
Wood, styrofoam, resin, plaster, paint, varnish, 140 x 50 x 100 cm
Inner Saboteur III, 2020
Wood, styrofoam, resin, plaster, paint, varnish, 133 x 42 x 83 cm
Wood, styrofoam, resin, plaster, paint, varnish, 133 x 42 x 83 cm
Inner Saboteur (I, II, III
Extraction is a common strategy in art making, its an instinctual purge from the immaterial mind into a form to be understood by the other. Yet Inner Saboteur is more about the strategy to avulse one’s own mind; the creator’s mind. The sculptural yogic convulsions, three beheaded guttural bodies retch and contract on their knees. It’s ambiguous to the viewer if they are in some domestic labour routine or dutifully praying to an unseen god. Bolted to the floor half-sphinx half-gut their green skin testifies to something not of this world. Yet their bodies know the contemporary mantra only too well…
This world is one of holding one’s stomach, the jarring daily bread that is fed to us from the vectors of media. Cause gastro gut-wrenching panics that suffocate our true inner emotions. Our intuition has been skinned from this organ in favour of echo chambers, identity politics and mediated coverage.
This lost sentiment of trusting oneself can be seen further in the sculptures when likening them to the ancient image of Narcissus, the sculptural forms of Inner Saboteur bend down looking into an imaginary pool, only they are headless.
They can never recognise themselves with no eyes or mind in which to form their own portraits. They only gape from their guttural perspective- in a state of futility, not to dissimilarity to the self-images we are surrounded by in our own media pools. We see more and more of our own image today but in turn, we seem to have less and less connection with it. Locked in an endless reflective pool just as Narcissus was. We pine our lives away silently, watching as our gut eats itself - sated on its own breath.
As the French philosopher, mystic and political activist Simone Weil once said: “Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.” Eigan’s sculptural beings give us that opportunity of detachment as we stand looking down at our own subconscious shadows, watching them nauseate on our own lives.
Text by Omsk Social Club for AB7 Eclipse,
Athens Biennale 2021
Extraction is a common strategy in art making, its an instinctual purge from the immaterial mind into a form to be understood by the other. Yet Inner Saboteur is more about the strategy to avulse one’s own mind; the creator’s mind. The sculptural yogic convulsions, three beheaded guttural bodies retch and contract on their knees. It’s ambiguous to the viewer if they are in some domestic labour routine or dutifully praying to an unseen god. Bolted to the floor half-sphinx half-gut their green skin testifies to something not of this world. Yet their bodies know the contemporary mantra only too well…
This world is one of holding one’s stomach, the jarring daily bread that is fed to us from the vectors of media. Cause gastro gut-wrenching panics that suffocate our true inner emotions. Our intuition has been skinned from this organ in favour of echo chambers, identity politics and mediated coverage.
This lost sentiment of trusting oneself can be seen further in the sculptures when likening them to the ancient image of Narcissus, the sculptural forms of Inner Saboteur bend down looking into an imaginary pool, only they are headless.
They can never recognise themselves with no eyes or mind in which to form their own portraits. They only gape from their guttural perspective- in a state of futility, not to dissimilarity to the self-images we are surrounded by in our own media pools. We see more and more of our own image today but in turn, we seem to have less and less connection with it. Locked in an endless reflective pool just as Narcissus was. We pine our lives away silently, watching as our gut eats itself - sated on its own breath.
As the French philosopher, mystic and political activist Simone Weil once said: “Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.” Eigan’s sculptural beings give us that opportunity of detachment as we stand looking down at our own subconscious shadows, watching them nauseate on our own lives.
Text by Omsk Social Club for AB7 Eclipse,
Athens Biennale 2021
Inner Saboteur I, 2019
Wood, styrofoam, resin, plaster, paint, varnish
170 x 80 x 45 cm
Inner Saboteur II, 2019
Wood, styrofoam, resin, plaster, paint, varnish
140 x 50 x 100 cm
Inner Saboteur III, 2020
Wood, styrofoam, resin, plaster, paint, varnish
133 x 42 x 83 cm