2011
Jesmonite, Fibreglass
550 x 180 cm

Frank Stella’s shaped stripe paintings provide the point of departure for Sande’s On the Inclination Towards Restrained Affinity and the Transubstantiation of Love, which imagines the fictional back side of such a canvas from the V series. By reproducing the structures invisible to viewers in museums or galleries, Sande creates reveals a perspective normally closed to the public and insists on the physicality of the work.

The repetitive stripes of Stella’s original already imply the concept of mass reproduction. Similarly, On the Inclination Towards Restrained Affinity and the Transubstantiation of Love is composed of a single repeated v-shaped module. However, in Sande’s work the idea of reproduction is reflected and refracted upon itself in troubling new ways.

Whereas mechanical reproduction results in a Benjamin-esque loss of aura, Sande’s hand-made plaster reproduction implies physical intimacy, mimicking Stella’s own gestures (which, for as precise as they appear, were also painted by hand). Through this careful remaking, the original work becomes both personal and iconic, the specific creation that gives rise to the reproduction.

Plaster suggests the traditional academic study of a master, and the act of reproduction is thus reconnected to its role in interpretation, education, and the transmission of artistic ideas. Rather than being devalued, the work and its aura are in many senses elevated.

Text by Amanda DeMarco