Vis-à-vis, 2002
GPO-0875
Plaster casts, white plinths, pencil and red pencil on xerox reproduction in plexiglas case, pencil on wall
Two casts 55 x 25 x 15 cm each, two plinths 160 x 30 x 15 cm, plexiglas case 80 x 80 cm, overall dimensions 300 x 275 x 15
Private collection, Rome
The two halves of a plaster cast of the Hellenistic head of Alexander the Great are arranged so that they face one another – vis-à-vis as the title tells us – on two plinths placed up against the wall. Departing from the two eyes are the trajectories of the visual angle, outlined in pencil on the wall. The exchange of gazes inscribes a plexiglas case, which includes the drawing of the same wall and the crossing of the gazes (outlined in red pencil and repeated three times); the case reproduced in the drawing in turn duplicates the elevation of the wall.
In the exchange of gazes, the image of the work is emphasized by way of the repetition (or mise-en-abîme), but at the same time the doubling leads to its gradual disappearance. From one “copy” to another of the same subject, one of the elements goes missing: in the first passage (from the casts to the drawing in the case), the two figures disappear; after that (from the drawing in the case to its representation inside the same drawing) the image enclosed in the case is reduced to a blank square.
The work is part of the developments of a distinctive theme that began in 1975 with Mimesi (cf. GPO-0283) and was developed in 1992 with Vis-à-vis (GPO-0707). The common denominator in these works is the exchange of gazes between two identical faces that ponder the very existence of the work and its creation through our own gaze. This theme would later be reformulated in novel terms in the series Vis-à-vis (Amazzone), 2019 (GPO-1087, GPO-1088, GPO-1089) and Vis-à-vis (Kore), 2020 (GPO-1090).
Menas, Alexander the Great, 3rd century BC, marble, Archaeological Museum, Istanbul.
