Grex

Hybrid. The word Grex evokes a hybrid. Here at Fondazione ICA Milano, it has nothing to do with Greek-derived terminology or mysterious words in need of translation; nor does it concern, as one might assume, a flock, an idea of mass. On the contrary, it speaks of an individual space. Grex comes from the world of botany. Sacha Kanah uses this term to describe the fusion between humans and nature, as well as a dedication to repurposed plastic materials, which are studied and restored as living entities that exist and breathe. The artist intervenes by shaping a bulky industrial element, observing its transformations and the new possible relationships created between matter and form, voids and solids, interior and exterior. Kanah creates an immersive structure in a confined context where a series of 1,000-liter tanks—sourced from an industrial dyeing plant and cleansed of its residues, odors, and traces—breathes in the space like a living form. The meticulous care with which the artist investigates human everyday life—even in its most troubling and complex aspects—often recalls the precision and resilience found in plants and certain natural elements. Grex, in fact, refers to a hybrid of flowers, and as a title, it encompasses the various traces and actions that have gradually constructed the environment dedicated to the exhibition. Engaging with a work of art is a complex matter. It involves multiple aspects that combine aesthetics, sensations, and narratives of all kinds. At Fondazione ICA, simply observing Kanah’s installation project from the outside reveals multiple layers. Then, if one takes the next step—crossing into the space dedicated to the project—the physical experience of the space comes into play. The body, now immersed in this place that moves slowly like a great lung, becomes part of the work. The viewer’s body undergoes a metamorphosis, aligning with the transformations experienced by the exhibited works and their interactions with one another. The space may feel suffocating. Perhaps this is a reference to the pressure that the industrial objects —deconstructed, reshaped, and renewed by Sacha Kanah—have endured on their own “skin” (as Kanah calls it), on their own outer shell. The plastic tanks seem to be in a state of respiration or compression. These large white tanks, like visible ghosts, contract and expand. Continuous motion. Like a sensitive magician, the artist carefully orchestrates a cycle of recovery, daily observation, preservation of a natural element, and a human act of care. Their relationship is harmonious. It is through “elective affinities,” as the artist puts it, that the elements engage in dialogue, even when placed in a different environment. The tangible subordination of these containers-turned-sculptures to reality remains: their material matrix is still embedded in the industrial world from which they originate. However, their interiors and surfaces are reshaped and undulated, much like the sculptures that Gio’ Pomodoro would have described as having “uninterrupted continuous motion” in his Prontuarietto (1987). These ghostly sculptures that Kanah reconfigures from empty and solid containers now belong to another realm—that of industrial matter shaped by human hands. They are breathing, absorbing sculptures. They are nebulous solids that, both poetically and mechanically, come back to life. Don’t look at me while I eat. For Kanah, sculptures placed in a suffocating environment are like bodies underwater. They are three-dimensional objects without weight, organizing themselves within the space. Perhaps this is why even the observer feels as if they are in apnea. The organs pause as one watches and notices the intervals between the carefully arranged elements in the confined space. Voids and solids trace a subtle path. Grex is a project about spatial relationships: the installation, the result of a long process of observation, study, and transformation, creates a place for reflection, punctuated by interstitial gaps, empty spaces, and cultural imagery drawn from readings and reflections on themes linked to Le Corbusier’s architecture, Lefebvre’s philosophy, and Massey’s scientific theories—some of the references Kanah turns to in the careful development of this unique body of work. Like a great breathing ghost, Grex comes to life through constraints, pulsations, pauses, and tensions. “Don’t look at me while I eat”—leave us alone for a moment in this space.