“Dropstones are isolated fragments of rock found within finer-grained water-deposited sedimentary rocks They range in size from small pebbles to boulders. The critical distinguishing feature is that there is evidence that they were not transported by normal water currents, but rather dropped in vertically through the water column.”…(wikipedia)
Grotta Scaloria, a Neolithic site in Italy, has an inner chamber. Across the floor human and animal bone fragments have been scattered. A rectangular-ish pool of water is surrounded by Cave formations. Some of the stalagmites have been broken off and on top ceramic bowls are placed, collecting the dripping water from the stalactites above.
Image making is an act that the ancients knew held power. It has been argued that art and the rise of abstract thinking is closely connected. Humans might still be creating images even after we stopped calling ourselves humans. In this installation exhibition Gärttner and Looström have worked by putting layers upon layers of imagery. From performance to video, painting and sculpture to sound provided by Antoine Lukac. Makeup on faces merging with wall paintings, the sunlight is shining through color-soaked windows.Ingredients float around, dissolve under the heat, and form complex flavours. The installation does not depict something ancient nor something from the distant future but an emanation of both in our own time.
The installation’s inhabitants come in the form of heads, floating around without bodies. Perhaps they are future entities only in need of the computing power of the brain and facial expressions. Or rather like spirits of a prehistoric cult site that the humans of a distant past could communicate with but we moderns can’t hear any more.
A dropstone is a foreign element, a hermetic space within the rock, effectively launched through layers of time. The exhibition can be read as a dropstone, from another place and time, reemerging when the seabed have turned to mountains.
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