Grünes Gewölbe: Dialogue. Carla Guagliardi’s installation

Dialogue

Carla Guagliardi’s installation 'Às Parcas e ao Edi' from the Schenkung Sammlung Hoffmann and the Great Rock Crystal Sphere from the collection of Elector Augustus of Saxony

Brazilian artist Carla Guagliardi has created an installation that consists of a round-bottom glass flask with three openings that is filled with distilled water and suspended by three threads — of steel, copper, and cotton respectively — attached to the walls. The work’s hanging position may gradually shift due to the different behaviour of the materials over time. In this way the artist envisages time as both a material and individual dimension.

Exhibition Site Residenzschloss

DATES 16/05/2019—22/07/2019

Both the motif of the crystal ball and three Fates of Roman mythology stated in the title (the Parcae, Portuguese: Parcas), who spin, measure and cut the threads of life, point towards other forms of thinking about time and the future. In the Sponsel Room at Dresden’s Neues Grünes Gewölbe (New Green Vault), Guagliardi’s poetic installation piece enters into an artistic dialogue with the Great Rock Crystal Sphere of Elector Augustus of Saxony. Long considered to be unmeltable, solid ice (Greek: krystallos), rock crystal has for millennia been a source of fascination for humankind. No matter which of the two spheres we gaze into, each refracts the light and casts an altered image of reality back at the viewer.