Eduardo Basualdo
Incisive, 2016

Artist
Eduardo Basualdo

Title
Incisive

Year of creation
2016

Technique and dimensions
graphite on paper, dimensions variable

Year of acquisition
2021

Donor
private collection Berlin

Acquisition of the foundation

The motif of the grid, the barrier, the border appears again and again in various forms in Eduardo Basualdo's large-format installations, sculptures and drawings.

The spatial work Incisive consists of a large-format drawing that creates a space within a space by covering the walls of the exhibition space. The paper on which the drawing is applied is extremely thin. On it you can see drawn bars that remind you of a cage or a prison. The drawing is created using the frottage technique by placing the paper on a large piece of metal grid and making impressions of the grid structure with charcoal.

Incisive is an installation that references both the interior of the museum and the motif of the white cube, as well as areas in the urban space or in a prison that are cordoned off and demarcated by metal grilles. The fragility of the drawing on the wafer-thin paper, which moves slightly as you walk by, contrasts with the motif of the grid. In everyday life, metal grilles serve to restrict and control movement by enclosing and excluding. As a wall-filling drawing, the grid structure gives viewers the impression of being enclosed, while at the same time they are confronted with the largely emptiness of the exhibition space. Here, as in other works, the artist uses simple means to create a tension between physical and mental space, between controlling structure and its abolition.

- gk