Dario D’Aronco at Tale of a Tub

Dario D’Aronco is an interesting artist that I like to follow and to mis-interpret. Thus I'm very sad to have missed his Rotterdam exhibition in Tale of a Tub. So I'm forced to re-live the exhibition indirectly, through texts and pictures from the internet.

Spread through the exhibition space are enigmatic, misshapen objects.  They are disquieting as they hover between artificial and biological domains. We don't know if we're looking at a skull, or the inside of a walnut. Something has been alive but now it is dead and empty. And at the same time it's full of meaning.

Flower Kidney, 2016, Polyamide 3d print from ultrasound scanning, wood, fabric, acrylic paint, camouflage spray paint

But that meaning is very different from the first impression. The object is a 3D print of the artist's kidney, imaged by ultrasound scanning. The artist went to the hospital and collaborated with the radiology department. It's not a dead object, it's the echo of a very alive object.

Still the object is disquieting. Now we're looking in a mirror showing our own biology, our invisible vital organs, made tangible. Like the baroque sculptures where the mortal decay is shown under beautiful skin.

The Touch, 2016, Resin 3d print from laser scanning, spray paint, wood, fabric, acrylic paint

The finger points. There is direction and meaning. But is it pointing right now, in our space and time or are we looking at a relic? An echo of our own radio transmissions coming back from space. A finger pointing at signal in the noise, patterns in the cosmic background radiation.

Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/ - Pictures by Luciana Caputo
http://a-tub.org/onsite/universal-indicator/
http://www.lost-painters.nl/tale-of-a-tub-dario-daronco-universal-indicator/
http://dariodaronco.com/
http://garagerotterdam.nl/nl/catalogi/24/kunstenaar/132/ - Pictures by Bas Czerwinski.