The Chimney present Vertical Horizons by Peruvian artist Nicole Franchy

How many meanings can an image convey, over time, in the minds of different people? “I am fascinated with the idea of representation and translation”, explains Franchy, “how we take in images and information related to our knowledge systems, and those are mostly constructed through the Western eyes.” "Vertical Horizons" immerses the viewer into a fictional reality, a possible utopia based on an uncertain memory of the past, where there is no ‘truth’ or ‘false’, but the need for reinvention. Franchy's collages and photographs often convey an intriguing sense of ambiguity. A close-up look enables to identify remnants of human architecture, revealing a sense of staleness and abandonment as a result of the passage of time. Contemplated from afar, a seemingly utopian and at times apocalyptic world emerges from her sceneries

Inspired by the idea of a living archive, Franchy’s working process is characterized by appropriation, translation, and re-interpretation of different times, imageries, and ideas. Throughout a selection of archival material such as vintage postcards and encyclopedias, she realizes collages and assembles imaginary landscapes where both ‘natural’ and ‘human’ architecture interact with one another. Her works produce new topographies and explore the fine limit between natural and artificial, objective perception and mental construction. She emphasizes the mechanisms that Western society has historically regarded as valid methods for building and accumulating knowledge.

Upon entering The Chimney, the monumental collage Black Wasser plunges the viewer in an enigmatic environment. A starry sky and a silhouetted skyline overlook a pond in which peculiar floating bodies are reflected. The temporality and spatiality of the exhibition is ambiguous and multiple. Past, present and future overlap at a time where that fantastical world faces a simultaneous rebirth and a fateful end. The scale of her prints allows the audience to enter in the intimacy and detailed layers of the collage and emphasizes the power of images in the construction and prevalence of urban myths.

Dispersed throughout the space, Vertical Horizons are human-scale C-prints collages suspended from the beams of The Chimney. Printed on Duraclear film, they are excerpts from the Encyclopedia Britannica on which the artist's engraved freehand drawings. These pieces address a variety of themes including, color and visual perception, memory, information systems, and structural notions as well as concepts connected to political geography. By using archival material with printed fabrics to craft three-dimensional pieces, Opposite and Above are three unique works made directly within the gallery space, giving the exhibition its site-specific and voluminous character.

Franchy’s “Vertical Horizons” de-categorizes understandings, establishes new definitions and propels the imagination and fantasies of the audience to invent new narratives and new meanings at the intersection of fiction and reality. 

NICOLE FRANCHY: VERTICAL HORIZONS

CURATED BY CARLA LUCINI

SEPTEMBER 9 - OCTOBER 8, 2016