Via Dei Banchi Vecchi 16
00186, Roma
Beatrice Bonino’s background is in ancient languages and in particular in
the duality – philosophical and grammatical
(therefore structural) – of the Mādhavīyadhātuvr̥ tti,
an ancient
commentary on the grammatical roots of Sanskrit. The vestiges of an attention
towards the morphological and metaphysical doubleness of things can be gleaned between the fog-like layers of what
look like elevations of materials which might
have otherwise been lost. Bonino’s first solo exhibition at Ermes Ermes
reflects upon the dynamics of disappearance
and that which lingers in the wake of dissolution, in spirit or material form.
In fact, it seems as if the stratified matter in Bonino’s
compositions are memories
now embodied through
the works on view.
The evanescent forms and materials
employed by Bonino elude definition and are manipulated by the artist
in an effort to verticalize and hang what would naturally
rest differently. A white silk curtain segment
is incapacitated by a sheet of glass. This replica of the curtain that
has always hung in the bedroom of the artist’s grandmother, presents with an un-mended hole. Despite Bonino’s
grandmother being the seamstress who made the curtain, the gash has always been there suggesting that sometimes the material results
of an accident can be the proof of a life lived. While developing
the exhibition, Bonino came across a text written by Mike Kelley
in which the artist elaborated on the differences between a ghost
(someone who disappears) and a spirit
(a memory or something that is not there, but is). One result is a text-work in which Bonino
lays out her own interest in the nuances of existence in relation to
action, suggesting some connections between Kelley’s
ideas and ancient
Indian philosophical thought.
The viewer too is invited
to contemplate on different
notions—of being and of doing as well as of accident, and on how these relate
to the memory and preservation of
one’s existence. Each time the artist visits her grandmother, something new in
her bedroom has vanished: one half of the bed and the handwritten notes which used to populate
the surfaces of the room are
now gone. Like in a dance between inanimate things – a Fantasia – the sight is
disorienting, leaving a strong sense of
the presence of an absence. The curtain remains.
“Kill your darlings” is part of the methodological wisdom that comes from
creative writing processes. The advice
is to coolly edit out any writing that doesn’t serve the wider purpose of the
narrative, to renounce to and shed
any prose that doesn’t fit, no matter how exquisite it sounds – regardless of
whether it got you to where you are
now – it can be sacrificed. Bonino often finds herself killing her darlings,
storing them for the next time.
While waiting for a more appropriate context
in which to exist, they live on within the artist’s desire.
Chiara Siravo, 2024
On the notion of
existence
I saw a vase drawn on page five of Mike Kelley’s Existance Problems. The glimpse of a seemingly dormant
memory: the vase is mentioned as archetypical object
of existence in countless ancient
philosophical Indian texts. This is certainly due to its common
presence and clear functional purpose; it is also more specifically considered
to be a particular type of object. In Sanskrit this object is called vikāryam, it involves the appearance
of a new quality in the matter
which is subjected to that transformation. Just like in the example,
he transforms gold into a
bracelet, in the same way he transforms clay into a vase. It is an object which
exists only in its final phase – after the transformation of the original
matter – but also all along the action involving its creation since
the intention is present in the maker from the very start. In Kelley’s letter,
the vase is represented as falling off a surface, he wonders what is being
displaced by that vase taking up that space, he calls it ‘the living dead’ and
wants to knock it off. I won’t be any
longer.
This is not it. A few years back I translated a late medieval Indian
commentary about the notion of action and, in particular, that of existence
as action. The author says that the verb ‘to be’ (bhū-) is employed in the sense of ‘existence’ (sattā) and that this existence can
be explained as ‘the fact of carrying one’s own self’ (ātmabhāraṇam).
I was, again, struck when, in his letter, Kelley writes of ‘self perpetuating’ when he is concerned with proving his own
existence through the mirrors which are the others. What is existence if not
the the continuation of one’s self?
While I can’t neglect that the starting
point of Kelley’s
reasoning is an ontological (and visual?) one, I for once
want to enjoy the freedom
of not making any specific
point. The ancient
Indian philosophers in question were considering the linguistic aspect
of it all but I can’t help but notice
a similarity between
the dialectic tools that
both they and Kelley employ while demonstrating what existence is. Indian philosophers distinguish between
general and specific actions, the first being
actions such as doing and being, and the second
such as cooking or walking. When someone asks
‘what is he doing?’, the answer cannot be ‘he is existing’. Not because
existing is not an action
– the philosophers have proven
that existence is the action
par excellence because presupposed by any other action.
But it is not a particular one, such as the one expressed by ‘he cooks’ etc. One asks for the specific, unknown activity
of something whose existence is, on the contrary, already known, and not at all
for the known existence of someone. For this reason, one cannot reply ‘he is
existing’ since existing is also a general action just like doing. Kelley unconsciously (?) makes use of this meant-to-be
flawless question-answer method in his letter:
hi 1) fine, what have you been doing?
2) not much. Just hanging around yea, just being here
1) just existing
2) yes, I exist
me too
There is only one exception, according
to the philosophers, for which one is
allowed to answer ‘he exists’ to that question, namely if one is
concerned with the disappearing of one’s self, through death. If existing is
understood as I am still
alive, I have not disappeared yet, I linger.
Is it possible Kelley had this in mind while questioning existence? And don’t we
all.
This unrequired comparison finds its reason
in a simple appreciation for common and time transversal mental human categories.
Beatrice Bonino,
2024
Beatrice Bonino (b.1992, Turin) lives and works in Paris; holds a PhD in
Sanskrit at Université Sorbonne- Nouvelle.
Solo and group exhibitions: 2024 (upcoming) Cosetta
at Bonner Kunstverein, DE; Galerie Molitor
(solo show), Berlin, DE; Post Scriptum. Un museo
dimenticato a memoria at MACRO, Rome, IT; 2023 Living Spaces at Galerie
Molitor, Berlin, DE; Cosetta at MMXX, Milan,
IT; If I did, I did, I die at Jacqueline Sullivan
gallery, New York,
US.