{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…}
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…}
When, a while ago, Pep Vidal saw for the first time the monumental sculpture project Mitjó (Sock), which Antoni Tàpies had originally designed for the Museu Nacional Oval Hall, he decided to take the concept of the importance of small things to the extreme, and created a nano-sock invisible to the eye. One year ago, we contacted the mathematician and artist and suggested he revisit the project: he responded with an exercise of lucidity. Mitjó has finally become a distant referent, but it continues to be a pretext to reflect, like the artist’s other projects, on the volume and measurement of things.
With {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...} Pep Vidal has invited us to participate in a dialogue between two equal volumes installed throughout two different spaces: that of a tent in the Oval Hall and that of an amorphous mass in the educArt Space.
You can see the project from Tuesday October 10, 2017, to Sunday February 4, 2018.
Some thoughts by Pep Vidal (July 2017)
NOTE 0
As a child, for a brief period of time, I had problems with umbrellas; more specifically, with the size of umbrellas. When it rained and I’d be walking along the pavement with my umbrella up and someone approached in the opposite direction, I had to slightly tilt the umbrella in order to be able to pass. It required a whole load of calculations to be done in a short amount of time: the width of the pavement, the intensity of the rain, the size of the two umbrellas, and the height of the two people. Always, during these calculations something would go wrong and cause us to clash. And, of course, bumping into someone while walking with umbrellas is not very pleasant. So eventually I decided to lift my umbrella slightly, rather than tilt it. The results were even worse.
I now don’t carry an umbrella.
NOTE 1
A series is a succession of elements that, put in order, maintain a certain relationship between each other. The notion of infinity, on the other hand, is related to that which has no end. An infinite series, therefore, is a series of units that has no end.
NOTE 2
Once, walking along the beach at night there was a piece of tree trunk. I don’t know what it was doing there or how it got there. But it was very beautiful. Another day, in the middle of a park in the centre of Madrid, there was another tree. Actually, the tree had been cut down. In fact, it was cut into several parts. And technically I couldn’t tell if 'all together' it was one tree or not. They were fragments of material.
NOTE 3
The central idea that mathematical truths are true and universal, precisely because they have nothing to do with the world, is also important.
NOTE 4
A tent is a temporary and moveable fabric structure held up by poles.
A tent as a place of shelter is one of the oldest forms of human habitat.
When it comes to tents for camping, these can be for one person, two people or groups etc. There are a range of styles - including:
- Canadian tents
- rectangular tents
- awnings
- dome tents
- igloo tents