Michail Pirgelis presents sculptural installations from decommissioned plane parts, offering them a second life as totems of industrial modernity. Parts of the plane’s rib, escape shoots, door and window casements, cabinet seats, turn into haunting sculptures, reworked, treated with subtle material interventions. Icarus comes crashing down in Californian aircraft boneyards and Pirgelis lurks to heal him. The image of a disassembled aircraft bears something traumatic and Pirgelis treats these relics with care, minimal meddling, peeling certain layers off to disclose a structure, respecting their history. He renders them triumphal. In his Memory Games (2017), he exposes the tortured inside structure of a spindle to highlight our false, metaphysical faith in durability.

#aircraft #trauma #memory #faith #industrial #modernity

photos: Nysos Vasilopoulos, 6th Athens Biennale 2018 ANTI