Groupshow, Jan Voss, Sophie Ullrich, Sophie Kitching at Nosbaum & Reding Gallery, Brussles, 2023

Trois à part

In her essay ‘In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective’ from 2011, Hito Steyerl offers a re-readingof history from the point of view of the vertical perspective. More specifically, she traces a history that leads from the departure from the traditional linear conception of vision and perception to a predominant postmodern, philosophically conceived human state of loss of ground, a state of free fall affecting subjects and objects alike. For in falling, we experience a loss of balance, of stable perspective, of horizon. Steyerl describes this chronic vertical state as follows: ‘Paradoxically, while you are falling, you will probably feel as if you are floating—or not even moving at all. Falling is relational—if there is nothing to fall toward, you may not even be aware that you’re falling. If there is no ground, gravity might be low and you’ll feel weightless. Objects will stay suspended if you let go of them.’[1] She further points to political and historical revolutions, and the change in the collective mentality prompted by a disruption of linearity, showing how this sense of falling has led to the emergence of new forms of expression that have favoured subjective perception. These considerations can be related to the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and his concept of ‘embodiment’, which denotes the way individuals perceive themselves in space. In this conception, the body is understood as a phenomenon situated in the world, in an environment. They also resonate with Merleau-Ponty’s ‘object-horizon structure’, according to which all objects are perceived in relation to a background or horizon. However, the horizon, unlike the object itself, is transcendent (just as an actual horizon can never be reached). This sense of floating or suspension caused by the removal of the horizon can also be elicited by painting. This exhibition of works by three artists presents viewers with a panorama of dissolution, like a triptych revolving around the phenomena of vision and perception.

- Nadina Faljic