‘Collagen Shadows’ — Group exhibition at ADA Curated by Zoë De Luca

Collagen Shadows

Pietro Agostoni, Monia Ben Hamouda, Martin Llavaneras, Thea Yabut

Curated by Zoë De Luca

At ADA, Rome

February 01 – March 14, 2020

Photography by Roberto Apa

Collagen Shadows takes its title from myodesopsia, an entoptic phenomenon generated by the not total transparency of the vitreous body in the eyeball. This thickening produces microscopic collagen clots, whose shadows are perceived in the visual field, in the form of circles, spots or filaments. Like other entoptic diseases, symptoms are subjective and therefore impossible to document directly. Although widespread, this phenomenon has been shrouded in mystery for centuries, sometimes leading to believe it as symptomatic of hallucinatory states; to date, its causes remain unknown, and most of the people affected do not know its nature, or are unable to describe its effects.

The works on show in Collagen Shadows are connected by this same elusiveness: hinges between second and third dimensions, often at the limit between figurative and abstract, move on the ideal grid of the exhibition space of ADA, inviting the viewer to approach the individual works from different perspectives, while at the same time trying to decode the polyphony. Do I see what other people see? Metals and resins become organic by means of stratifications and signs, while papers, minerals and acids annihilate their nature and change state: the surfaces free themselves from any passivity and activate conjectures on the constellation of details that inhabit them, pushing the eye to a continuous settling, in vain attempt to solve its complexity.