I have copies of a publication designed and produced by d/b/a Monica for the occasion of our exhibition at The Commercial, which includes a
thoughtful essay by Naomi Riddle. Let me know if you’d like a copy.
Excerpt from ‘Inside a pebble, the universe’ by Naomi Riddle-
What new images
would we find if we could see through the closed pages of a book? Or, what would we see if
we looked at splintered or muddied or multiple images of an object, rather than a single hi-res
file?
Yet Danges’ discovery and apprehension of his source material is only the starting
point. He breaks apart the folio, for instance, and photocopies page over page over page,
layering one image over the other, so as to accumulate a mix of fragmented shapes. (The face
of one sculpture might ghost behind another, or a chiselled surface might be intercut with a
vaulted ceiling or a black shroud.) Through a process of UV-printing these composite images
onto aluminium, he adds yet another layer of chance to the final result—letting the ink run,
pool, and dry on the metallic surface. Just as a rockface’s geological strata exposes the
sequences and events that have shaped the Earth’s history, so do Danges’ accrued images
compress layers of time: there is the sculpture, the photograph of the sculpture taken in the
mid-20th century, and its scanned and overlaid reconfiguration in the 21st.
“Some things are not meant to be clear,” says writer and artist Etel Adnan.
“Obscurity is their clarity.” 1 And Danges’ occluded images, with their splices, echoes, and
overlays, relinquish the single point of view in preference for the multiple, for the play
between solidity and illusion.
@micahdanges @annakristensen @thecommercial #micahdanges #annakristensen #thecommercial
