A continuation of artist Joseph La Piana’s ongoing “Tension” installation series, Untitled, 2020, explores the kinetic dynamics of isolation and interaction at a time when the concept of “distance” has never been more freighted with complex associations of fear, infection, politics, and cultural prejudice.
Spread out over several rooms, cylindrical black and white marble columns of varying heights are grouped in clusters, decreasing in the density of columns with each advancing room. Each of the columns within the clusters is wrapped with clear cellophane, an allusion, for La Piana to connections, however fragile, that bind communities together. As the number of columns winnows down — the last room featuring just one — attention is drawn to the state of solitude and separation that the individual encounters in the modern political age.
For La Piana, the installation channels the imposed forces pushing apart the individual from the community. At once stationary, La Piana’s kinetic works are equally dynamic, reflecting the inherent tension that is constantly availed upon the self — and the communal — embodied within society today.