Christian Andersen, Frederiksholms Kanal 28A, 1220 Copenhagen K, +45 2537 4101, info@christianandersen.net
A Hobo Pentimento Objet Trouvé*
The being of things in thinging permits and maintains the unique otherness of things in their dynamic relation to one another. The reinforcing of the thought of the uniqueness of being in each thing is significant. And things should not be merged into some bland, uniform oneness. They are apparently the other of each other as well as the other of themselves in that they’re also not and are continually changing. The otherness of things that appear and come to being, differing from each other as well as from what they were and can ever be.
*Pentimento is ‘a visible trace of earlier painting beneath a layer or layers of paint on a canvas’. Viste Grønli practices the neologismthinging–an inflection of the noun thing, borrowed from Heidegger–by entirely covering various found objects with US pennies. The U.S. Mint has reported that the unit cost of producing and shipping one-cent coins exceeded the face value of the coin, thereby transforming the coin’s monetary value into mere material of greater value to be reused. The obsessive covering of objects with this metal alloy transforms everyday objects into copper plated familiar shapes, serving as a twisted, reversed gilded age. A hobo’s pentimento objet trouvé, if you will.