If we remove the question posed for discussion by the author of the compelling theoretical text “The Destiny of Images,” Jacques Rancière’s statement becomes: “Under the very name of the image, there are multiple functions whose problematic assembly precisely constitutes the work of art.” Art (perhaps in other words) composes and unifies the multiple functions beneath an image. It constructs concepts and shapes forms from the materials it processes, just as it composes ideas from images, experiences, and perceptions. In essence, it interprets the world and constructs meanings through matter and vision, through the materiality of place and the gaze of the subject. However, visual perception precedes language. A child sees and recognizes before speaking. The power and intensity of the image are dominant because one first sees and recognizes, then understands and interprets. The image translates materials into meanings through which we perceive the world but does not guarantee a true or false interpretation, as the image represents regardless of whether it imitates or not. The representation it proposes allows open interpretation through the multiplicity of form-meanings it generates while simultaneously constituting its own materiality. The materiality of the image engages or imposes itself on the subject’s gaze.
In the exhibition “Materialities and Gazes,” the three creators use different media to compose images that, through the materials they employ, rearrange the multiple meanings emerging from their viewing and the corresponding paths they suggest. Symbolic-intellectual paths derive their existence from the layers of reading and interpretation beneath the surfaces of their images, and literal paths within the exhibition space at the Potential Project, where, depending on how the visitor traverses them and the light they encounter or follow, additional and different shapes, structures, and meanings are perceived.