A9, GRANITO NERO ASSOLUTO 2012-2014

An elongated oblong form made from smooth black granite, one of the hardest materials to sculpt. A wonderfully homogeneous, volcanic stone. An inner skeleton seems to ‘push’ the shape into form from the inside out. 

Self-contained, that would be the best way to describe this sculpture. A trace of the force, with which this matter was pressed together, is still visible and enforces a certain respect. Therefore it might not come as a surprise that for Badriah this sculpture is about willpower. As the sculpture is spun around, it will only turn to the left. When turned to the right it stubbornly refuses and staggeringly comes to a halt. But what is the self anyway? If it’s not the senses, not the organs, not even this thought? When we strip away everything then only pure being remains; witnessing itself witnessing. Through the physical Hamelink tries to approach that pure essence, out of which all the physical arises, in an attempt to give material some kind of presence; some kind of ‘soul’. Eloquently put by Kenneth Clark in his punch-line of the book ‘The Nude’: ‘Thus modern art shows even more explicitly than the art of the past that the nude does not simply represent the body, but relates it, by analogy, to all structures that have become part of our imaginative experience. The Greeks related it to their geometry. Twentieth-century man, with his vastly extended experience of physical life, and his more elaborate patterns of mathematical symbols, must have at the back of his mind analogies of far greater complexity. But he has not abandoned the effort to express them visibly as part of himself. The Greeks perfected the nude in order that man might feel like a god, and in a sense this is still its function, for although we no longer suppose that God is like a beautiful man, we still feel close to divinity in those flashes of self-identification when, through our own bodies, we seem to be aware of a universal order.’ Much like the ancient rattle-backs that were used by shamans to predict the future, this object expresses certainty.

 Title: [A9], Material: Granite, Nero Assoluto (India), Size: 74cm x 15cm x 10cm, 2012-2014