DEFICIT (the lack)! at Poggiali e Forconi Gallery – Florence

Three artists’ answers to the question connected to every absence.
Harun Farocki (Novy Jicin, 1944) at first launches an icy, detached, almost sarcastic attack to the mind/money, ideas/governement short circuits (Nothing Ventured, 2004); then comes an ironic though angry reflection on the uproar sparked by football matches, whose representation is mediated by those able to exercise their control over communication (Deep Play, 2007). The spectator’s mind is bombarded by twelve videoprojections – twelve ways of lacking direct experience, and therefore of being in deficit of an original opinion.

Harun Farocki, Galleria Poggiali e Forconi

Harun Farocki, Deep Play, 2007, Deficit (the lack)!, Galleria Poggiali e Forconi, Firenze

Harun Farocki, Deep Play, particular, 2007, Deficit (the lack)!, Galleria Poggiali e Forconi, Firenze

Sadly violent, thoughtfully indignant, the polemic of young painter Krzysztof Klusik (Opole, 1987) against “what’s missing” – essentially identified by the artist, in today’s social system, with human identity; children lack of their mothers (Born to Perform IV, 2011), shoes have no feet to wear them (Untitled, 2012), girls are graceless (If, 2012), and fists have no face (Born to Perform III, 2011).

Krysztof Klusik, Galleria Poggiali e Forcon

Krysztof Klusik, Born to Perform III, 2011, Deficit (the lack)!, Galleria Poggiali e Forconi, Firenze

Krzysztof Klusik, Galleria Poggiali e Forconi

Krzysztof Klusik, Born to Perform IV, 2011, Deficit (the lack)!, Galleria Poggiali e Forconi, Firenze

David Michalek (Lonra, 1967) offers us a more sophisticated approach to the theme of deficit – peraphs the most positive one. His work his quite pro-active: in Figure Studies (2012) he doesn’t just denounce; he offers – through the delicate but powerful energy of human bodies in motion – naturalness as the only alternative to degradation. Although the installation dedicated to his friend and collaborator could be an attempt to fill a lack throughout an overflow of expression, it is clear that millions of words, signs and symbols can cover walls, but not the absence on the chair and in the woman’s eyes (Portrait of Becky, 2002).