23/10/2023

“Do objects of different weight fall at the same speed? At school we are told that, by letting balls drop from the Tower of Pisa, Galileo Galilei had demonstrated that the correct answer is yes. For the preceding two millennia, on the other hand, everyone had been blinded to the fact by the dogma of Aristotle, according to which the heavier the object, the faster it falls. Curiously, according to this story, it seems ever to have occurred to anyone to test whether this was actually true or not before Francis Bacon and his contemporaries began observing nature and freed themselves from the straitjacket of Aristotelian dogmatism… It’s a good story, but there’s a problem with it. Try dropping a glass marble and a paper cup from a balcony. Contrary to what this beautiful story says, it is not at all true that they hit the ground at the same time: the heavier marble falls much faster, just as Aristotle says.”

Carlo Rovelli, There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness (Translated into English by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell), Allen Lane, 2020, p.1. 

Galleria Continua’s cavernous, medieval space on Via del Castello 11 in San Gimignano is currently hosting Polish- German contemporary visual artist Alicja Kwade’s humorous exhibition In Cerchi where we observe the artist going round in circles in pursuit of the crossroads of artistic context, philosophy, physics, and astronomy.

Entering through the heavy wooden door on a sloping cobbled street, you find yourself in a narrow corridor that leads to two self-contained rooms on your right. The first room with a vaulted ceiling is pristinely plastered and painted in white, and the floor is laid with Tuscan “cotto” tiles. An azure and white globe is stuck in what looks like a white plastic chair, the kind you see in every garden regardless of economic status. Another greenish-blue globe is stuck under a Thonet-style chair, the kind used at some pretentious outdoor wedding parties. Mono Monde and Siège du Monde (II)...  Slightly to the left, there rests another globe in smoke grey and white, and to the right, on the floor rests a cantaloupe… It immediately sparks a silly debate between an Italian curator and me. Is the chair plastic? No, it surely can’t be… Is the globe made of plastic? If it’s not, can a plastic chair carry a stone globe? One of us touches the globe. It feels cold to the touch. The other decides to smell it, it has a sandy, stony scent… And is that a real cantaloupe? If it is, it must be GMO! All in place, all out of place.

We talk about how we are both amused by the titles of her works, and she informs us that she decides the title after the work. This restless, dynamic artist who has been producing monumental works for global commissions since the late 2010s, such as the Parapivot for the MET, was last week announced to leave her 15-year collaboration with König Galerie for Pace Gallery, who also represents the creator and inventor of mobiles, Alexander Calder. 

The heavier marble falls faster. And here they have all fallen stuck, except those suspended in purgatory. I remain in situ, anchored to the spheres and the rotational pull of rocks by an invisible chain. Copernicus, Galileo, Dante appear in my mind's eye. Though strangely enough it's perhaps, Aesop, whose fable The Astronomer, rounds it all up nicely:

“An Astronomer used to go out at night to observe the stars. One evening, as he wandered through the suburbs with his whole attention fixed on the sky, he fell accidentally into a deep well. While he lamented and bewailed his sores and bruises, and cried loudly for help, a neighbour ran to the well, and learning what had happened said: “Hark ye, old fellow, why, in striving to pry into what is in heaven, do you not manage to see what is on earth?” Aesop's Fables, based on the translation of George Fyler Townsend, Doubleday & Company Inc., New York, p. 76-77. 

For forty years, Alicja Kwade has searched and found what is on earth. Though, now there is a more pressing matter, her desire for gelato! As she hurries out of the gallery, I think to myself, "That's indeed an artist who can make heavy work light!"

P.S. Alicja Kwade is concurrently exhibiting solo at Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg. In Agnosia runs until 25 February 2024.

In Cerchi can be visited upon booking until 14 January 2024.