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user/pages/02.whats-on/events/current-upcoming/sara-berman-matter-out-of-place/events.md

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+---
+date_one_day: '07-12-2019 16:30'
+title: 'SARA BERMAN Matter out of Place'
+media_order: 'Installation Sara Berman.jpg,Installation Sara Berman(1).jpg,Sara Berman, Lint Sweater #37, 2018.jpg,Sara Berman, Lint Sweater #38, 2018.jpg,Sara Berman, Lint Sweater #40, 2018.jpg'
+show_sidebar: false
+aura:
+    pagetype: website
+---
+
+"It is something rejected from which one does not part, from which one
+does not protect oneself as from an object. (...) It is thus not lack of
+cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity,
+system, order."
+
+- Julia Kristeva
+
+There is an unprecedented struggle for unity and mutuality in this epoch of
+singularity and individualism. The biblical precedes these secular ideals in
+the myth of Babel, with its human element inevitably failing into disparity,
+not just of language but also of socio-cultural context for its collective
+ambitions would become its primary sin. Surrounded by divergent,
+fluctuating value systems, Sara Berman has selected the lowest common
+denominator of mankind as the focal point of her work, as an uncanny,
+debased catalyser in her line of artistic inquiry: 'waste'. A propensity for
+textiles has perhaps indicated Berman in the direction of lint, of drying
+machine filters, which despite her minimal intervention, do not draw one
+immediately towards the abject nature of the piece, but rather ensue an
+auratic dialogue guided by their anthropomorphic quality and vivid
+stratigraphy. This 'matter out of place', waste in the form of the work of
+art (the commodity par excellence) comes to embody the term derived from
+Mary Douglas's seminal study on dirt, not just literally, but through the
+very internal logic of the works. Not only are the fabric remnants
+dislocated from their status as superfluous objects, framed and exhibited
+within the gallery space, but in her attempt to generate discourse Berman
+has created an art object resistant and adhering to any nomenclature, while
+circumventing any positive or negative valences. The works find
+themselves in a latent state; perhaps even one of paradox for an initial
+reaction might contravene a subsequent one upon finding out the medium. 
+From breaking her own dyer at home, to her latter exploration of London
+drycleaners, from the first attempts of gathering the lint in large bags to
+then attaching it to furniture, Berman has redacted her process of making
+to reduce the infliction of her will upon the work as much as possible. This
+however has not created a ready-made, for the immediacy of deskilling is
+replaced by a careful subtraction, while the unique makeup of the works
+would have them tangential to artisanship. Berman selects the lints from
+the filters (very few of which present this distinctive layering) and stiches
+them to pieces of linen without seeking precision. There is an
+inexhaustible web of socio-economic relations, which each wool fibre or
+hair follicle has traversed and can further generate through their
+repurposing in the lint figures. It is perhaps not coincidental that some of
+these should have a convex, circular geometry, occurring in the inferior
+parts evoking thus the maternal or the fertile. The human dimension of the
+works would have it operate like an artefact, even more so now that the
+pieces are exhibited framed for the first time, an equalizing procedure to
+stress their organic, biological aspect. There is only an illusion of
+uniformity as each work is entirely distinct in its 'genetic composition'
+while any separation occurs as an auxiliary, as our own imposed
+estrangement from it. Berman has removed the glass dividing the viewer
+from the 'abject', facilitating either confrontation or familiarization, in
+either circumstance permitting a direct exchange. The rug outside invites
+one into the gallery space while simultaneously deconstructing its
+boundary, playing into the idea of domesticity as a percept for belonging
+and safety while including the nomadic. Berman's inquiry extends into the
+exterior realm, the question remains, is it art, a handful of hair and lint
+from the local drycleaners or simply matter... out of place?
+Smaranda Ciubotaru