Federico Luger. In the Round White Cube

In the Round White Cube

FEDERICO LUGER

In 1982 Gabriele Di Matteo visited the Centre Pompidou in Paris. One afternoon, he saw Jackson Pollock’s exhibition and his life changed...because that afternoon he decided that he was going to be an artist.

That same year, also Gabriel Orozco visited the Centre Pompidou, and, according to what he tells in an interview with Hans-Ulrich Obrist, that visit triggered in his mind a series of reflections that helped him develop his work further.

What I did was to create a point of reference: I invented a moment in which both “Gabriels” came across each other at the Centre Pompidou. I imagined them walking around and thinking, living, feeling the adrenaline that the experience that changed their lives provoked. And I put a white spot on the floor.

The white spot, in practice, becomes a kind of traffic sign, a guide that helps you remember that there are moments of inspiration and valuable ideas that you have to know how to recognize and follow. It is where hypostasis manifests. That spot directly links to Plato’s conception of oneness... I found my white spot in those blank labels that serve to categorize CDs.

It is the residue, what is discarded, even if for me it is a metaphor of the information that is not recorded nor catalogued, a sort of void that many people experiment, and even deny. The interesting thing about this spot

is that it is possible to find it in any part of the world, it is a global ready- made. It doesn’t need distribution, because it is already distributed in every stationary store. Anyone can buy a blank label for a CD, stick the white spot wherever s/he wants and declare it a symbol.

I conquered my moment of inspiration painting, the experience of working with colours and brushes gives me enormous pleasure, a joy that other things fail to wake up in me.

Once I finish a work and the paint dries up, I pack it with wrapping paper. That paper gives the impression that the work is about to be delivered somewhere. That journey happens only metaphorically, when I stick the white spot. It is only then that the package becomes a package that is ready to travel.