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NOWHERE
2023
Steel, lacquer
260 x 93 x 8 cm 


The sculpture Nowhere confronts the viewer with a word game that parallels the perception of time and space, one that can equally be read as a reflection on an Eastern and Western conception of utopia. Read as “no-where,” the work addresses a placelessness that is inherent to the Greek word u-topos—“the place that does not exist.” The utopia in a Western interpretation refers to the idea that a state imagined in the future has not yet become reality, has not yet found a place. The focus is on a point in the future that is aimed for, and that is thus diametrically opposed to the second interpretation of the title. “Now-here,” the idea of being in the moment, refers to the momentary presence of that which in the Eastern conception of time and utopia is to be unveiled: the selfless space of a formless void that we have shared since the beginning of our existence with each other. A famous passage from the Buddhist Heart Sutra unequivocally states: “Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Emptiness is not separate from form; form is not separate from emptiness. Whatever is form is emptiness; whatever is emptiness is form.” Thus, in the potentiality of emptiness lies the origin of all phenomena, as well as their disappearance. From this perspective, “no-where” and “now-here” coalesce in the sculpture Nowhere.



Photos: Simon Veres