Lucia Koch’s recent museum acquisitions
June 4, 2019
Spaghetti (Siena), 2004, 313.5 x 151 cm, 123-3/8 x 59-1/2 inches, pigment print on cotton paper, UV matte laminate, edition of 6 (left), Installation view, Rusticchella, 2013, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH, 2014
180 x 144 inches; 457 x 366 cm (overall, 3-horizontal panels) 60 x 144 inches; 152.5 x 366 cm (each panel), pigment print on cotton paper, UV matte laminate, edition of 6 (right)
Lucia Koch's Spaghetti (Siena), 2004 has been acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum.
"Reproductions distorting scale and depriving of characteristics the material density from originals create what André Malraux denominated “imaginary arts” linked to his idea “Imaginary Museum” and made practical by photography that modifies reality perception. “Imaginary arts” conception seems to be the mobilizing operation from photographic works in the “Fundos (Backgrounds)” series made by the artist Lucia Koch. In this photographic series another vital question it is made is the relation between “external referential and the message made by such medium” as it would be said by Philippe Dubois in “Photographic Act”. Through the view of both considerations we may find a possible pertinent reading for that series works."
"Interested in explaining dimension, the photographic image can give to real, and trying to create situations of spacial projections. Lucia Koch photographs inside boxes of pasta, milk, wine and crackers in works like Spaghetti, 2003, putting such images in architectural scales, printed on photographic paper. Thus, the artist ends up unrealizing the originals by creating imaginary spaces. These instigating titles are about original product from the photographed boxes."
-Niura Legramante Ribeiro (2006). The Deceitfulness of images: the inside of boxes in architectural spaces.
Lucia Koch's Rustichella, 2013 has been acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
Rusticchella was made for the Cruzamentos at the Wexner Center for the Arts exhibition space. A small bag of pasta was chosen for its proportions (fitting the whole entrance wall) and translucent material, its color also matching the wooden floor, it belongs to the ongoing series: Fundos: photographs of the interiors of empty cardboard boxes, packages, bags, etc., registering the light entering a space, reflecting in its walls, and lending it an ambiance. They are chosen for the proportions similar to those of a room or a corridor, with cutouts that work like windows or skylights. Fundos photographs are usually works in situ, since each copy is printed in precise dimensions to adjust to a particular room, to give the idea of an extension of the space where they are installed. Their titles refer to the original content of each container: Organic Sugar, Tetrapak, Café Extraforte, Riso Arborio, etc.