clemente ciarrocca


TO KISS ON A BATTLEFIELD, ACT 1

Gallery D301, CalArts, Santa Clarita

March 18 - April 16 2023
MFA Thesis Show
with additional performances by Kayla Dobbs and Aviana Glover

press release
exhibition text
In the atmosphere remains - companion text To Kiss on a Battlefield, Act 1
Aftermath - epilogue


Photos by Logan Wolfe and Yun Gi Ahn


How can something be made (or make itself) by unclaiming capture?
How can something, rather than formally assuming a typical relationship of belonging to its own idea, radically unclaim that connection, to work solely as a sacrificial, oblique return system, a channel upstreaming to an original pulse?
How can something just be bankside to a river/field, to a stream that is continuous, and continuously opening?
[note to self, March 14th, 2023]

Rooting in such paradoxical questioning to eventually develop as a material, performative and theoretical methodology, To Kiss on a Battlefield revolves on creating and iterating ground. Synthetic sweat is assembled and spread over the gallery floor, drying and crystallizing over time. A DMX-controlled light tied to the solar cycle illuminates the space to then plunge it into darkness, cycling every forty minutes. Offering a place to be and nothing to see, To Kiss is a cut running through exhibitional dynamics and the violent assumptions that embed the very acts of seeing (contra looking) and identifying. In Act I, these are both exacerbated and neutralized to acknowledge, expose, and relegate trauma (traced back to its Greek root, 'wound') as the defining paradigm of contemporary life and thought—an exposure and a relegation that allow for an informal imagination of kissing as an inverse, alternative paradigm. "To make something by subjecting it to the same forces that make life unlivable, and to do it as if its aesthetic life depended on it, charges what is made with an incalculable urgency" (P. Chan)



To Kiss on a Battlefield, Act 1, production documentation, pouring the spread in the gallery, photo by Logan Wolfe


To Kiss, Act 1, production documentation, pouring the spread in the gallery, photo by Logan Wolfe
To Kiss, Act 1, installation view
I died to kiss on a battlefield and I died to kiss on a battlefield (documented with flash)
2023
cnc-engraved aluminum, synthetic sweat
86 x 131cm
Clearing (documented with flash)
2023
cnc-engraved aluminum, synthetic sweat
25 x 18 x 3.5 cm
To Kiss, Act 1, performance still, with Kayla Dobbs, photo by Logan Wolfe
To Kiss, Act 1, performance still, with Kayla Dobbs, photo by Logan Wolfe
To Kiss, Act 1, performance still, with Kayla Dobbs, photo by Logan Wolfe
but / that / does / not / mean / it / necessarily / is / that / peace (documented with flash)
2023
cnc-engraved aluminum, synthetic sweat
55 x 20 cm
To Kiss, Act 1, performance still, with Clemente Ciarrocca and Aviana Glover, documented with flash
To Kiss, Act 1, performance still, with Aviana Glover, documented with flash
Where does the difference between rise increase growth and invasion lie / Only where it spread are you able to walk (detail, documented with flash, pre-opening)
2023
cnc-engraved aluminum, synthetic sweat
76 x 121 cm
Where does the difference between rise increase growth and invasion lie / Only where it spread are you able to walk (detail, documented with flash, post-opening)
2023
cnc-engraved aluminum, synthetic sweat
76 x 121 cm
To Kiss, Act 1, performance still, with Kayla Dobbs, documented with flash
To Kiss, Act 1, performance still, with Clemente Ciarrocca, documented with flash
To Kiss, Act 1, installation view, opening night, documented with flash
 To Kiss, Act 1, performance Still (The Kiss), with performers Kayla Dobbs and Aviana Glover, photo by Logan Wolfe
By Word of Mouth (documented with flash)
2023
cnc-engraved aluminum, synthetic sweat
25 x 18 x 3.5 cm
To Kiss, Act 1, installation view
To Kiss, Act 1, installation view
Chunks
2023
microcrystalline wax
43 x 28 x 20 cm
Chunck (Child) (documented with flash)
2023
polylactic acid print
22 x 22 x 40 cm
Chunk (Heart)
2023
hand-carved aluminum
9.7 x 11.4cm (diametrical measurements)
Chunk (Heart) (documented with flash)
2023
hand-carved aluminum
9.7 x 11.4cm (diametrical measurements)
skyline / cosmologies / ridiculous / circularity
2023
cnc-engraved aluminum, synthetic sweat
22 x 22 cm
To Kiss, Act 1, production documentation, Avi and Kayla, post opening
To Kiss, Act 1, production documentation, Avi and Kayla, post opening
To Kiss, Act 1, production documentation, Avi and Kayla, post opening
To Kiss, Act 1, installation view, post opening (documented with flash)
To Kiss, Act 1, installation view, entrance to the gallery