Linear A: Anastasia Ax
Opening 11.10 16-20
Intervention 11.10.18 at 19.00
Intervention with guest 10.11.18 at 16.00
The force of destruction enables something new, much like a Phoenix from Greek mythology obtains renewed life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor. Life in death or vice versa is what Anastasia Ax reflects in her art or being the third axis in the dichotomy. The gypsum works, made with pink newspaper from the financial section, connects five different plasterboards, in which diverse scars creates patterns and marks representing the vulnerability of the relation between humankind and our marks in the environment, as well as the scars humans inflict upon each other. This presupposes communication since leaving a trace somewhere demand action, and what deliberate non-action leave in the polarisation of relationships. Anastasia Ax represent this action via the cold and hard plasterboards which she brings back to life similar to the Phoenix. Through this dissolution Anastasia takes the higher ground stance by embracing the versatility of the material.
In her studio Anastasia told me about her desire to enable a new reading of the material, liberating the plaster from its chains. She sees it as soulful, even though the material itself may be harsh and not yet revived in the cyclical loop of materials predisposition, she becomes an element in that process. In enabling an animation of the material Anastasia is the pilot, her dialogue with the plasterboard the co-pilot and the "machine" the whole work in its entirety. Ergo, none of them could exist without the others in this trinity-crew. Seeking the truth of the material one has to go beyond the material, expand into another dimension utilizing the body and material to achieve the third axis in the dichotomy.
All this manifest in her performance using fragments from previous acts and exhibitions. Close to a reminiscing retrospective, she uses pieces that not only look back to what has been but what lies in the future, building something that connects the two points in her oeuvre. All these fragments compose a new whole, and the material regains life in the performance. Piles of gypsum and slices of pink-paper move around in the live act as Anastasia pilots the fragments to re-activate these memories of the past. They function as artefacts, and the relation between them is amplified so the audience can hear the sound of them scraping against each other, the surface upon which they interact and the intuition of Anastasia Ax's movement. Reminding of an archaeological site, delimited we are all standing alongside looking down and hearing new discoveries and relations. Anastasia holds the magnifying glass like an archaeologist showing the viewer the deeper meaning of her finds, at the same time giving the materiality life back.
Valter Sydén
