This is, surprisingly, the first European solo show since 1999 by New York-based Brazilian artist Valeska Soares, whose installations offer stimulation for all five senses. Soares frequently modifies the gallery space by deploying mirrors, stimulating the viewer to ponder the relationship between the real and its reflected image, an experience that morphs one from passive spectator into an active agent. For her current show, devoted to the myth of Narcissus, the gallery walls are absorbed by light and illusion. Lustrous white sculptures and drawings on porcelain recalibrate the space, transforming the show into a singular organic entity, reflected in a giant pool (made of mirror) lying on the floor. Narcissus’s myth has been widely represented in art history, but Soares gives Ovid’s tragic, melancholic story a fairy tale renovation. Drawn figures, escaping their porcelain surroundings, become three-dimensional sculptures, as if they regained physicality by communing with their reflection. In the myth, Narcissus is attracted to his image, rather than himself, making his identity an infinitely regressive series of identifications. Similarly, Soares’s sculptures appear to find fulfillment in their visual echoes, leaving us to contemplate the relationship between ego, absence, and representation.
...
Read review at artforum.com.
