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Nicola Costantino: Sophistication
Sophism n. (from the Latin sophisma, from the Greek sóphisma). A fallacious argument or faulty syllogism, intended to make falsehoods appear as truths.
Sophistication n. The act of sophisticating; the effect.
Sophisticate v. tr. To adulterate or falsify reasoning with sophisms || Intr. To use sophisms.
At first glance, the works by Nicola Costantino exhibited in Espai 13 may provoke a visceral rejection: a series of animal forms displayed abundantly on the walls and floor of the room. This rejection grows when we learn that these figures are casts taken from animal foetuses, which the artist uses as the foundation of her work. The elegance with which Costantino has arranged the images of these creatures strengthens the impression that we are confronting something perverse: she invites us to contemplate the image of a dead body.
First and foremost, we must address this alleged perversity. Throughout history, art has often turned to the dead animal body as a model and theme, as seen in the richly adorned Baroque still lifes featuring pheasants or rabbits ready for consumption, symbols of the ostentatiousness of the time. However, in Costantino’s work, there is an implicit sense of deception. Everything related to biology is filtered through a clean, aseptic aesthetic. It draws on the tradition of animal art, yet with a clear analytical sensibility, a geometric coldness in its presentation, a simple and repetitive structure and a visually pristine finish. The artist has chosen the perfect form of the sphere and the classical frieze, a band that adapts to the architecture that houses it.
Eating is a basic function. As with all human needs, it becomes laden with uses, myths and taboos, reflecting each society. The act of ingesting food is also closely linked to sexuality, as both are governed by the dictates of desire. The relationship between people and their food is always a clear reflection of the essence of their thinking and the conditions in which their lives unfold. Hindus would never eat beef; Muslims and Jews would not eat pork; Western European culture would not accept eating dog meat. Nicola Costantino is Argentine. The diet of her country – a key element of its national identity – is built around the daily consumption of beef, and includes one of the world’s most emblematic culinary rituals: the asado. On the other hand, Argentina is a country with a past, even the most recent one, full of irrational violence, with wounds still open.
The artist, precisely drawing from these ideas, offers us a vision devoid of precepts about some of the foundations that define Western society. The first and most immediate is the evident contradiction between the innocent image of the unborn animal and its future as food. The idea of contemplating a pig foetus disgusts us, but we would not mind encountering it months later on our plate. This incoherence points to the constant denial of processes. We don’t want to know where the steak we eat comes from, just as we conceal many other processes that define and enable what we call wellbeing. The macabre abundance of living beings in Costantino’s work reminds us that behind our comfortable post-industrial lives lie countless transformations we choose not to see, such as the inner workings of the food industry, which remain acutely relevant today. These processes operate from a physical perspective, the consumption of goods, much like the complex systems that govern human relationships and the dynamics of societies. Costantino’s frieze reminds us that, perhaps, reality conceals a very complex web of invisible certainties.
In America, the pig is generally referred to as chancho, curiously derived from the proper name Sancho. The simple perfection of the chancho-bolas therefore comes from an animal carcass. The various diameters we see have no other explanation than the size of the animals from which the casts were taken. Similarly to what happens with the frieze, we are faced with the sinister reality that death generates beauty.
The irony of excess present in Costantino’s work is perhaps her most significant discovery. Through obvious adulteration, the artist emphasises contemporary falsehoods and urges us to distrust everything.
Ferran Barenblit
Nicola Costantino (Rosario, Argentina, 1964)
Untitled, 2000, cast of unborn calves and foals in polyester resin,
40 cm × variable length.
Chancho-bola, 1998, polyester resin, cast from life, variable diameters.
Ternero-bola (Calf-Ball), 2000, polyester resin, cast from life, variable diameters. |
