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At first glance Eugene Carchesio's recent exhibition appears to be just another example of an artistic game of power. He falls victim to those seemingly inescapable conflicts inherent in contemporary art production that make ~ impossible to fix such concepts as 'artist'. However, to dismiss the work as a manifestation of a negative postmodern dilemma is unfair and reflects the viewer's situation more than the artist's. The so called 'art audience' exists in a parallel crisis to the artist.
So, despite my initial conviction that through his role as artist, or rather creator, Carchesio is playing power games with the audience in a possibly witty challenge to their assorted preconceptions, he is not consciously satirizing any art world. Carchesio is aware of the system within which he works, but chooses to regard this as secondary to the fulfillment of his 'creative function'.
187 Works For the Peoples Republic of Spiritual Revolution encourages the viewer to look at the macrocosm and the microcosm.
Carchesio examines the relationship of things, processes and ideas as they are presented or perceived to exist. His images, arranged in a readable horizontal fashion, contribute to, and describe a process of accumulated knowledge.
A single line of small works on paper is accompanied by the continual presence of Carchesio's music. The viewer is drawn to examine each piece as an individual entity relating to its physical and metaphysical surrounds, its context within the exhibition and in turn to the institution.
Familiar shapes, words and objects act as participants, and evidence, of the process. He places geometric shapes and religious symbols on graph paper just like colouring in squares during maths classes. Typed words, small watercolours, a dried