In order to make the language phrasing systems visible Jesse Ash makes works, whose elements are partly hidden, denied or coded. For the exhibition A Battle for Narrative, at Monitor’s in Rome, the artist presents a new group of collages. The stratification of the images takes the place of juxtaposition, according to a process which leads to the omission of the subject, highlighting instead the compositional structure.
The main work is 45 minutes (a proposal), a tiny colorful object whose form comes from the outline of a political speech, while News from Nowhere are charcoals on paper. Composing A Battle for Narrative is a 16mm film, where a single hand-colored element determines some kind of coded message upon paper objects forming a still life inspired by Giorgio Morandi’s works.
Ash’s exhibition is on view until July 23, simultaneously to the show in Rome of Vincent Honoré’s travelling project Proposal (a room, some things) for Rome – Session_16_Press Release, set in the other gallery room. The curator questions the role of the press release and of the curatorial practice in visual arts and related to the action of a text for a nonexisting exhibition. Articles and essays on the wall of what looks like a sitting room determine a match of visual imaginative world and the idea of archive.
