AL-GHAIB: Aesthetics of the DISAPPEARANCE

Dal Thursday 28 April 2011
al Wednesday 01 June 2011

Conceived And Curated Gaia Serena Simionati

MARIA REBECCA BALLESTRA
Who is not able to contemplate the beauty of nature in the sky is a blind (dead) man.

A landscape where thousands of bird and fish corpses lie on the ground in Arkansas or Northern Europe
could appear to be an apocalyptical scene or a biblical event. Or it may recall a new film by Paul Thomas Anderson,
whose “Magnolia” earned him the Golden Bear in Berlin thanks to his surreal, final scene: an unceasing rain of big
scary frogs falling from the sky. But this is not a film, nor a book, though it is something sacred.
This is a collection of the new stories that shooks Europe and the US in the last days of December 2010, showing an
unceasing plague affecting fishes and birds. But this time, it’s something real!

Maria Rebecca Ballestra loves red. Perhaps because it’s the color of earth, fight, blood and fire. And with red,
she covers her installations. Like the one on show in the external space of the exhibition hall: Contemplation.
Forty delicious feet (20 pairs) made of exclusively red-colored plastic and covered by mirrors that allegorically catapult
the sky onto the earth. Above them it’s written: Who is not able to contemplate the beauty of nature in the sky is a
blind man. The idea is to displace those feet: a symbol of man’s roots and of his random walk in front of this axiom,
that hymns the respect of nature. A nature that is disappearing everyday more and more, as proved by daily news
stories, in an era where man is consistently moving away from and treading upon it.

Inside our exhibition, we see another installation with five nice red frogs. Due to its prolificacy and to its
considerable metamorphosis, since the time of Ancient Egypt the frog has been a symbol of rebirth and the
continuous regeneration of life. This installation is a careful and dramatic reflection on the disappearance of humanity.
The nature and the Earth revolt, leading the artist to ask herself about the fateful results of globalization. Floods,
submerged cities, apocalyptical scenes in which pre-historic animals, sorts of genetically transformed beings that have
survived mankind, dominate deserted cities and apocalyptical landscapes. The increase of marine waters, the risk of
floods and tsunami, the torrential rains and the glaciations will bring us to a biotic transition known as mass-
extinction1. This installation is composed of five lecterns on a table. Each lectern holds an encyclopedic dictionary in
one of the five languages of the five future biggest economic powers: Chine, US, India, Japan, Russia.
The word “extinction” has been underlined in every dictionary, whether it refers to a lack of resources or the increase
of pandemic diseases. The bookmark of each dictionary is tied to five frogs lying on the ground2. As it happened in
the past, each extinction is followed by the birth of new species and by a new geological era. According to this
connection, Maria Rebecca Ballestra puts the frog as the herald of renaissance and collective welfare.

1
We live in a short geological period in which a massive subversion of the eco-system is taking place. A big number of living species
will disappear, while other species will survive and become dominant. The extinction rate corresponds to the number of biological
families of marine invertebrates and vertebrates that become extinct every million years. Until now scientists identified five big mass-
extinction (also called: Big Five) every 69 – 124 – 71 – 115 millions of years.
2
The image of the five big economic powers is shown beside the phenomenon of the big five mass extinctions. This composition
suggests that probably a new mass-extinction could occur due to precarious international balances and to possible climatic changes.
This could lead to the extinction of mankind, regardless of our belonging to different nations.

Double Opening: 14th of March and 18th of March 2011 Panel discussion @ 6pm

Presentazione del catalogo 28 aprile ore 18.00
Riva Loft, Luxory Hotel
Via Baccio Bandinelli 98
50142 Firenze

March 15th - June 1st 2011

MARAYA ART CENTRE, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates