In the small ‘Passerby’ space in the front window of Paris’ Galerie Alain Gutharc, Bending Binding were invited to make a piece of work by curatorial group Exo Exo. Between September 7 and September 25 Loop of Faith was there. A portrait and display of visibility and/or visuality, a figure looms and leans over with pink marshmallows for hair curlers. Under what looks like liquorice lace for a head, there’s a hair outline, as well as skirt that is blowing up in the non-existent window wind.
Below the liquorice skirt, embedded in resin but looking like ice, is a mini neon-lit hurricane, poised perfectly at the right angle according to the skirt’s movement. Loop of Faith points to showing all the necessary parts in a scenario. In a film you wouldn’t need to see glowing gale, but in the window display you do somehow.
At the bottom of the diorama is a half-filled carton of dirty water, an ultrasonic fog generator, which seems plugged into the lower tip of the tornado. At the top of the Passerby space is an air conditioning condenser, a physical object and motif that Bending Binding have worked with before. It has been scratched in to, drawn on to, using marks that go against the horizontal grain of the condenser. It feels strange, like, despite this being drawn on and defaced the physical behind of the object is enough that it still can be there. It still can be used to catch all the water possible in the air of the the small 98cm x 290cm x 34cm display space and turn it back into water that is distributed (or just there) around the pockets of the person created by the liquorice lines.
As an image, it’s hard to know what exactly you’re looking at, or into, in this window into a window. **
Exhibition photos, top right.
