Caline Aoun
Ever New Becomings of Space, 2022
Carbon paper cast
Dimensions variables
Copyright The Artist
In Ever New Becomings of Space, Aoun was looking into the fluid permeability between the invited space of Marfa’ and the hosting space of L’Atlas. By experimentally overlapping the floor...
In Ever New Becomings of Space, Aoun was looking into the fluid permeability between the invited space of Marfa’ and the hosting space of L’Atlas. By experimentally overlapping the floor plan of both spaces, Aoun noticed a huge similarity in both their sizes and layouts. Aoun was interested in opening up or breaking the finitude, boundedness of the exhibition space and create a work that would be able to instead reveal the flows of spaces trough time, and to address the changeability of the physical space. For this exhibition, she has reproduced sections from the floor at the gallery of Marfa’, by pouring on its surface silicone rubber, from which she then created paper casts. These transcriptions were then displayed in the space of L’Atlas in the exact locations where the silicone molds were originally poured in Marfa’. In this way, the viewer encounters the sections of the floor from Marfa’ gallery in the same spatiotemporal configuration as the viewer would have if they were walking in the latter.
Though once removed, the casts retain an indexical link to the floor, much like analog photography, where subtle traces and marks can be seen. The surface of the work becomes a material register to the history of the gallery’s exhibition making, as well as to the unfortunate explosion that happened in the port of Beirut in August 2020, which greatly impacted the physical space of the gallery and left visible cracks on its floor. The seemingly solid and permanent spaces of our lives are not static, but they are made of various events that are kept hidden, that constantly transform the space into a new one.
For this work, Aoun used blue carbon paper, a material which she often uses in her sculptural
transcriptions. As a result, the paper casts on the floor are reminiscent of the sea, and of its maritime boundaries, its boundless space into areas of exclusive national rights over mineral and biological resources. At the same time the work is seen as a group of bounded islands framing outward within the space the flow and traffic of visitors around them.
Though once removed, the casts retain an indexical link to the floor, much like analog photography, where subtle traces and marks can be seen. The surface of the work becomes a material register to the history of the gallery’s exhibition making, as well as to the unfortunate explosion that happened in the port of Beirut in August 2020, which greatly impacted the physical space of the gallery and left visible cracks on its floor. The seemingly solid and permanent spaces of our lives are not static, but they are made of various events that are kept hidden, that constantly transform the space into a new one.
For this work, Aoun used blue carbon paper, a material which she often uses in her sculptural
transcriptions. As a result, the paper casts on the floor are reminiscent of the sea, and of its maritime boundaries, its boundless space into areas of exclusive national rights over mineral and biological resources. At the same time the work is seen as a group of bounded islands framing outward within the space the flow and traffic of visitors around them.