The Void as an Affinity

What can the void contain? We have selected seven works that share neither discipline, material, scale, nor function, yet which, from our perspective, establish a relationship through a single concept: the void. In each work, the void takes on a different dimension. It may be the space defined by a form, the structure built around it, an interior available to contain something, or an absence that preserves a memory.

Seven works, seven approaches to the same idea. Their affinity does not arise from what they are or from the category to which they belong, but from the relationship we discover between them. Interior, air, absence, body, transparency, boundary, memory, silence, tension, trace, expectation, presence are some of the words that can circulate between these works without belonging exclusively to any one of them. They are possible connections, starting points from which to construct other correspondences and other readings.

What happens, then, when these works enter a collection?

A collection can be a space where boundaries become permeable. A jewel can coexist with an object or a sculpture; the small with the large; different materials, periods, geographies and languages can establish relationships that do not depend on the categories to which they belong. When a collector brings a work into a collection, what are they really collecting? An object? A jewel? A sculpture? A technique? An artist? An idea? An experience? A memory? A way of seeing the world? The exhibition takes as its starting point the idea of affinity that Goethe transferred from chemistry to human relationships: different elements which, when brought together, can establish new relationships and transform existing ones. The exhibition proposes transferring this idea to the construction of a collection.

What makes two apparently distant works recognise one another?

It may be a form, a material or a gesture. But it may also be an idea, a memory, a tension or an intuition. A relationship that perhaps only becomes visible when the works share the same space. Perhaps a collection is not defined by what its works have in common, but by the affinities we discover between their differences. Collecting means selecting, relating, preserving and building knowledge. Each new addition alters the relationships between the works already there and transforms the collection itself.

If we stop asking which category an artwork belongs to, we can begin to ask why we choose to preserve it. The Void as an Affinity proposes thinking about a collection beyond dimensions and disciplines, where knowledge, affinity and informed intuition allow unexpected relationships to emerge. Because perhaps what we collect is not only objects. We collect relationships.

But what do the relationships we choose to build tell us about ourselves?

Choosing a work, bringing it into proximity with another, preserving it and living with it is also a way of giving outward form to a way of seeing. Over time, the affinities, intuitions and decisions through which a collection is constructed can begin to form a kind of mirror: not necessarily of who we are, but of how we look, what we recognise and what we decide is worth keeping with us. Investigating these affinities also transforms the way we collect. Intuition can become informed intuition; affection can coexist with knowledge; choice with discernment. The collection ceases to be an accumulation and becomes a process of research, selection and the construction of a personal way of seeing.

What does what we choose to preserve reveal about us? And, perhaps even more importantly: What can we come to know through what we choose to collect?