Lito Kattou

Anniversaries

Frieze London 2021
T293 Rome

‘Unworlding’ section cur. by Cedric Fauq

T293 is pleased to present a solo stand by Cypriot artist Lito Kattou (1990). The project moves between the personal and the collective, the human and the other-than-human, inviting the viewer to reflect on our earthly presence. The observation of the relationship between body and environment, which is the focal point in the artist’s practice, pushes here the line of investigation beyond the boarder of reality.

A significant influence in the artist’s practice comes from the digital world. In fact, she has been involved in experimentations of artificial intelligence and, in collaboration with the Google Cultural Institute of Paris, the artist has created in 2017 the character San, who inhabits a simulated 3D environment. On the edge between materiality and abstractness, Kattou’s approach to sculpture is characterised by the refusal of the three-dimensionality, that traditionally defines this medium, in search of a different, extreme reduction of the volume. The exhibited pieces are laser-cut aluminium sheets shaped as silhouettes to be grasped frontally, where their bi-dimensionality is clearly perceived through their depth, which is minimized to just a line.

Originating from this background, Kattou’s sculptures are projections of hybrid, extra-terrestrial figures. They keep yet traces of their contact with our earthly nature through the free-standing copper elements, that enclose real flowers typical of the Mediterranean flora. The compactness of the metallic surfaces is broken by empty fields, that are both functional to the figuration and windows through which the observer’s gaze is free to extend beyond the object, and the coldness of the metal is livened up by painted interventions, that define the sculptures’ outlines or depict landscapes inspired by the colours of Cyprus.

In this production, conceived for the curated section Unworlding at Frieze London, the artist includes a new dimension in her artworks, the issue of time. By adding specific dates that are linked both to personal anniversaries as well as to natural disasters related to climate's change which have occurred in the South Eastern Mediterranean region, time seems to replace the decreasing depth of the sculptures. The engravings on the bodies’ surfaces become vectors of memory and experiences connected to the surrounding environment, while the latter is facing change, transformation and even finitude.

The stand emerges as the scenography of an undefined world, inhabited by undefined creatures, who wander in the shade of multiple sunsets. The crepuscular environment, melancholic for its nature but at the same time alive, is a moment that induces meditation, where the circularity of time and its flow is examined through the astral phenomena of the Sun. At the end, Kattou’s artworks act as screens, where the anthropocentric point of view loses its central position and opens up towards new worlds.