Tension as concept, possesses dual meanings. Within the realms of the physical world, it connotes the opposing forces that act upon, and pull at, fixed points. As a psychological state, it conveys an instance, prolonged or brief, of heightened sensation. For his latest installation, “Tension: Art Basel,” artist Joseph La Piana continues his investigation into the dialectics of tension, exploring and interrogating the forms with which it plays out in our collective embodied experiences.
Comprised of transparent pvc, wrapped around and stretched between volleyball structures located at Ocean Drive & 7th Street in South Beach Miami, “Tension: Art Basel” continues La Piana’s installatory series of tension-based sculptures, “Tension: Red Hook”(2015), “Tension Between” (2018), and “Tension Sculpture Installation: Park
Ave,” (2019). For La Piana, the appropriation of the volley ball court serves “to take the existing identity of the environment and subvert its intended function.”
La Piana’s interest in tension traces its origins to his ongoing body of work— paintings, collage, and other media—which depict abstract, linear forms. In this light, his “Tension” sculptures can be viewed as extensions of these earlier explorations, three dimensional extrusions of earlier investigations on planar surfaces.
By virtue of their site-specificity, La Piana’s sculptures are exposed to the elements and, as such, the taut, stretched PVC that wraps around their forms are subjected to constant pressures, those inherent to the works themselves, as well as outside natural forces.
For La Piana, this amplified state holds within it the potential for his works to respond kinetically and contains within them the possibility of fragmentation and degradation over the duration of their installation. This state of perpetual engagement with the forces of physical tension, transforms La Piana’s installations in to what he identifies as “active sculptures.”
Ultimately, for La Piana, the “Tension Sculptures” manifests what he identifies as the pressures that confront the individual today. Every day, tensions are promulgated by conflicts—whether political, social, environmental, or interpersonal. These enduring disputes intensify the divisions among us. La Piana’s sculptures, stretched to their capacity, echo this state of cultural and emotional disruption. It is La Piana’s hope that we explore the parallels between his sculptures and the current state of affairs. Tension is a powerful force: it is a source of internal and external agonism that brings to the fore questions, real and metaphorical, about states of integrity in the face of prevailing