A new speech
“That which with all evidence we do not see, looks at us as a lost effort. The manner of what is visible becomes inescapable -that is, condemned to a question of being- when seeing is feeling that something eludes us it eludes us inescapably: said another way, when seeing is losing. Everything is there.”
The character opens a drawer. They find toys and a camera with their own images. Cut. The character opens a drawer. They find their hostess’ underwear. Cut. The character opens a drawer. They find it empty. Which of all these options is real? The work of Silvio Fischbein takes the autonomy of art to the point where, he himself in the role of the author seems to disappear so that the art piece is free of any closed meaning. The interpretation of every piece is left in the hands of the spectator.
“The author is a modern character, undoubtedly produced by our society, in the dimension they’re in, coming out of the Middle Ages and thanks to English empiricism, French rationalism and personal faith of the Reform, discovers the prestige of the individual or in a more noble way, of the “human person.”
It was not until the coming of artistic autonomy that the dichotomy signifier-signified stopped being used wholly as another tool for domination. This is how we have been able to reach the development of the artistic vanguards, asking ourselves about the relationship between art and life, getting into abstraction and even expressing the end of art. If art -and, thus, the subject- would have never expected an autonomous thought, contemporary art would not be possible.
However, let us remember that that autonomy has always been fiction. Each person is molded by belief systems that juxtapose and displaces them. The prevailing paradigms are already without need of being installed through great works of art. We are part of a pattern of meanings which we construct and deconstruct.
This is in play, up until the moment of confronting these works. We must know that every interpretation we elaborate, has an origin in a pattern of meanings which precedes us and of which we are a part. What suggests multitude, ceramic, that frame in the movie or that intervened object? Whichever the answer it will have a greater link with our ideas than with an author’s intention.
If contemporary art does not possess determining axioms, Fischbein’s poetic keep his own principles hidden. Fundamentally, he generates a pensive space so we will be the ones to develop a new dialogue. It can be only an expression of desire of the writer, but let us imagine a world where we appropriate an image’s meanings -as we do in Fischbein’s work- can be possible.
Federico de la Puente – July 2018