Through the Green Veil

Fabiola Menchelli
Material Art Fair, Vol. 9
PROXYCO Gallery, Stand A18
Expo Reforma, CDMX
Feb 9–12, 2023
Text by Laura Orozco


Fabiola Menchelli
Material Art Fair, Vol. 9
PROXYCO Gallery, Stand A18
Expo Reforma, CDMX
Feb 9–12, 2023
Text by Laura Orozco

Through the Green Veil is an installation by Fabiola Menchelli that distances itself from the conventions of the photographic apparatus to expand its languages ​​and functions. The pieces—configured from the folds of the photographic paper itself—lose their “optimal” and impeccable character to take a three-dimensional form. This action proposes a break with the hegemonies of photography: it includes the error as a tool to question the interstices of the image. The work replicates one act—the fold—but in its repetition the gesture is resignified in a space open for negotiation between support, color, light and architecture.

Between the soft gradients appears a curtain framed by the saturation of magenta, a pigment present in the pieces thanks to its opposite: a green filter. The exploration of the limits of hot pink takes an impetuous place that overflows from the art object to the entire space, and directs the viewer’s gaze towards the whites, to the lack of time and content in the image. The white cube refers to that absence present that privileges and sustains the work in question. This tension between pigment, spatiality and gaze is a conscious wink to the actions and prejudices associated with femininity, valid as a female artist. Menchelli subverts the function of the magenta color under a character of accumulation and occupation, and leaves any previous association suspended. The artist leads us towards that middle space between the work and what surrounds it. There is a loss of absolutes that allows us to look at interiority from exteriority and vice versa. The installation becomes a liminal space, a prelude to what is to come.

Laura Orozco