The English art critic and historian Herbert Read (1893-1968) noted that “one must ask a devastating question: to what extent does art remain in any traditional (or semantic) sculpture sense?” Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), one of the great thinkers of the Frankfurt School, wondered: do not the achievements of technological civilization indicate the possible transformation of art into technique and technique into art?
These are some of the questions that the contemporary viewer of sculpture can ask in this exhibition, given that sculpture is no longer what it used to be. The different trends, kinetism, lighting, environmental, included in the sculpture category, are too problematic to be classified. Nor can they be included in vitalists, neo-vitalists, formalists, scientific, optical, cybernetic, all classifications that have completed more than 50 years of non-representational sculpture, not to mention minimalism or object sculpture.
In Meteora, Greece, in the plain of Thessaly, are the monasteries of the eleventh century, suspended from the sky, hence perhaps the association with their ships. Bercic’s works are enigmatic, especially those female headdresses that unite the past as if they were archaeological remains with the material of the present, molded worked resin and even chiseled in the manner of the great sculptors. His three digital photographs of snowy landscapes that accompany the exhibition are the result of personal experiences and visions taken in 2017 in the south of our country. (Defense 1136. Free admission. Closing on May 8).
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