OPENING 6 NOVEMBER IN SANTIAGO.
That Skin That Bristles
Haptic and Shiny:
Insomniac, the Tapestries of Marino Balbuena
It gave me great pleasure to remember all those details.
I started sweating while lying down, wondering what would happen next.
I remembered a phrase, perhaps from Ecclesiastes or the Psalms:
"the hair of my skin stood up," and it seemed like such a perfect description
of that feeling that I wrote it down word for word.
-Denton Welch
His love episodes were almost all, if not imaginary, highly imaginative. He imagined grand scenes of romantic ecstasy, of physical pleasure, of soulful communion,
right at the edge of reality.
(…) What bodies did you fail to recognize with your obsessive gaze?
-Calvert Casey
Two moments. Very close.
Before, it was Selfie, the abyss between the pixel, the second captured in the tiny screen, and the leisurely stitch of embroidery. Asking ourselves: how do we approach a body, how do we hold onto it, in what way do we question it? In what state? How do we reach the eternity of a single moment? In that instant when you will remain fixed for me forever. Perfect but unfinished. Suspended in the distance of the moment and the detail.
In what the Epicureans also called kairós, that other touch. The wisdom of touch.
Cross-stitch with metallic thread and mouliné.
Embroidery in a bamboo hoop, which in Chinese culture symbolizes kindness, modesty, and serenity, and in Japanese culture, humility, strength, perseverance, and sensitivity.
How do we experience closeness when there's no evidence?
In what way are you there?
Insomniac. Marino Balbuena: "Referring to nights of heat, sweat, and excitement, with these men taking naked selfies and, at the same time, being awake, metaphorically."
Now we speak of The Fascinating Tone. Of constructing an intimate time.
Far beyond what a fling can offer.
Torsos, arms, silhouettes, contours. In your form.
From hue to tapestry. Another way to reach, to attain.
Someone defined sensuality as the human ability to remain in someone's memory. An essence transmitted.
The craftsmanship of the tapestry-of these tapestries-in its devotional quality. A dedication to the use of materials: alpaca, bronze, copper, metallic threads. Wool and tufting technique.
Blackwork embroidery on Aida fabric.
The tools of suggestion, the precious mode of presence.
It's clear that for Marino, undertaking a piece is to generate sensitivity.
A poetics of materials.
The overcoming of any maladie, any discomfort.
To shape you with my hands. In your image. Taking my time.
Taking time from you. Each time more. In the uninterrupted history of the tapestry.
No innocence in the colors: dominant reds, browns, and blacks.
Of red, about which Michel Pastoreau, historian of colors, said: it allows no shades.
"Red is a proud color, full of ambitions, a color that wants to be seen and imposed over all others. It also has its dark side. It is fascinating and burning like Satan's flames."
Also the brown-Caravaggio, the one with which Michelangelo Merisi composed his worlds, bodies and more bodies, insisting that his paintings were not made to be seen, "but to be felt."
It refers to all corners of Art History.
That dim color often repositioned in favor of others, whether sepia, chestnut, tawny, or rust, as a variant of black when the latter saturates a work.
Invariably two: niger, the shiny black, and ater, the matte black, unsettling, alluding to black bile: two humors in conflict.
Two modes. Yet always one.
Rafael Cippolini, curator
October. 2024
