Ecclesiastes is carved from pure transparent quartz, worked so that the stone looks weightless, as though it would evaporate in a moment, the way smoke melts away together with the image of the person who released it. It is held up by a metal structure that lifts it to the end of the path travelled.
The work refers the viewer to King Solomon, to whom the authorship of the book written under the name Ecclesiastes is attributed: the wisest of men, who had wealth and human happiness and who built a great temple, and who wrote in the end that none of it matters, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. In the Hebrew text the word for vanity is khevel, which in the ancient Aramaic language means breath, that which quickly disappears and evaporates, and from there its figurative sense of an empty, fruitless occupation. Inhale, exhale, and the man is gone; only the spirit hovers for a time over the works of his hands, and everything created by man is perishable and subject to entropy.
Is it worth continuing? What really makes sense? What will remain? Cities live as long as their people do, and people live as long as they keep in touch with nature. Will there be time to find a balance?
The metal structure stands for human connections, earthly affairs and achievements. They are still strong enough to carry the weight of the idea of existence, but they gradually collapse into a skeleton that recalls the armature of urban structures or of power lines. An elusive beauty is present even in this pessimistic composition: the beauty of fragility and fleetingness, the beauty of being, which can only be seen through love.
Materials: quartz, metal
Ecclesiastes is carved from pure transparent quartz, worked so that the stone looks weightless, as though it would evaporate in a moment, the way smoke melts away together with the image of the person who released it. It is held up by a metal structure that lifts it to the end of the path travelled.
The work refers the viewer to King Solomon, to whom the authorship of the book written under the name Ecclesiastes is attributed: the wisest of men, who had wealth and human happiness and who built a great temple, and who wrote in the end that none of it matters, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. In the Hebrew text the word for vanity is khevel, which in the ancient Aramaic language means breath, that which quickly disappears and evaporates, and from there its figurative sense of an empty, fruitless occupation. Inhale, exhale, and the man is gone; only the spirit hovers for a time over the works of his hands, and everything created by man is perishable and subject to entropy.
Is it worth continuing? What really makes sense? What will remain? Cities live as long as their people do, and people live as long as they keep in touch with nature. Will there be time to find a balance?
The metal structure stands for human connections, earthly affairs and achievements. They are still strong enough to carry the weight of the idea of existence, but they gradually collapse into a skeleton that recalls the armature of urban structures or of power lines. An elusive beauty is present even in this pessimistic composition: the beauty of fragility and fleetingness, the beauty of being, which can only be seen through love.
Materials: quartz, metal
