Turn and Wind

Parra & Romero is pleased to present Rosa Barba’s new series of sculptural works and a film in Turn and Wind, the artist’s second solo exhibition at the gallery.

The new work series continues Barba’s long-term research on the semantics and temporality of language. Presented on a steel structure, which operates as a frame, the sculptural works form an installation of connected discontinued paths. In Liberties (2020), Barba creates fragmented texts based on the prose by Susan Howe from The Europe of Trusts containing three of her books first published in the early 1980s: The Liberties, Pythagorean Silence and Defenestration of Prague. As one of the most celebrated experimental poets of her generation, Howe engages with historical, theoretical and mythical references while expanding traditional notions of genre and disciplines. By abstracting Howe’s text Liberties to its smallest unit, the letter, Barba assembles a new archive of fragmented narrations, different rhythms and layers. As in many of her previous works such as Language Infinity Sphere (2019), Optic Ocean (2011), and Time Machine (2007), dealing with the examination of language and its forms, Liberties builds a continuum of questions regarding simultaneity and anachronistic time perception. Cast in wax, the letters become threedimensional objects—in its seemingly fragile materiality, the framed wax pieces mirror the artist’s search for meanings and traces of ever-changing and infinite versions of narration bursting out of common diction of rhythms. As part of the installation, Barba further shows the work Isolation of Information from 2015. The wax roll containing the record of thousands of metal letterpress blocks represents a landscape of language, and introduces the artist’s occupation with printing instruments. In her practice, Barba has repeatedly invented new printing devices, allowing her to make a performative act out of the printing process. Works such as Language Infinity Sphere (recording) (2018) are the result of a sculptural device in the shape of a rolling sphere—made of lead letters, Language Infinity Sphere has an overall weight of 100 kilos and demands printing in one go under full physical exertion. The printing act reminds of a similar effort when filming with a hand camera, reverberating Barba’s reflection on the film camera as a drawing instrument.

In the second room of the gallery, the central piece of the exhibition, the film Aggregate States of Matters (2019), is shown in an expansive 35-mm film installation. Shot in the Andes, the film deals with the increasing impact of climate change on remote areas. At its core, the film pivots on the ambivalent negotiation between the binary idea of nature and culture, oscillating within the contemporary discourse on the environment, and its complex layers based on scientific, philosophical, spiritual and cultural approaches. For Aggregate States of Matters, Barba worked with communities that are affected by glacier melting and its geological time becoming present today. In a cautious, yet scrutinized exploration, the film illustrates blurring and melding boundaries between human and non-human actors. While the indigenous population profits from the benefits and wealth of farming, which rapidly increase due to changing environmental conditions, they concurrently face fast-moving challenges in their spiritual and cultural lives. Deriving from an extensive dialogue with the local people, Barba sensitively draws a critical picture of a world where progress and growth have stopped making sense, without reducing the complexity of the current situation in the era of the Anthropocene.

By doing so, the artist thematizes the increasing awareness and evidence of human interference on Earth, which has led to a general perception of urgency, intangibility, and a state of permanent crisis, asking the central question of representation as already posed by the scholar Rob Nixon:

“How can we convert into image and narrative disasters that are slow moving and long in the making, disasters that are anonymous and that star nobody, disasters that are attritional and of indifferent interest to the sensation-driven technologies of our image world? How can we turn the long emergencies of slow violence into stories dramatic enough to rouse public sentiment and warrant political interventions, these emergencies whose repercussions have given rise to some of the most critical challenges of our time?”

Moreover, Barba designed a modular bookshelf presenting selected books such as In Praise of Love by Alain Badiou, Articulating Dissent: Protest and the Public Sphere by Pollyanna Ruiz, and The Piggle by D.W. Winnicott, among others. In addition, Barba displays original artworks by artist friends, with whom she keeps a lively exchange. The installation designed and curated by Barba pursues her long-lasting interest and appreciation of relevant artists, thinkers, and authors, and exemplifies her search of related intellectual, artistic, and spiritual thoughts throughout her artistic practice.

Text by Helene Romakin.