The Elemental Cabinet

There are two opposing forces that shape everything we do and have ever done. One force ascends and strives for immortality. It consists of the need to impose order over chaos, the will to create and to change, the reason to act, an idea, an image. This force is represented by The Badminton Cabinet, an extraordinary, baroque piece of furniture from the 18th century, a perfect example of sublime vanity. The other force descents and wants to die. It is entropy, the resistance of nature, the laws of matter, the artistic humility of Robert Rauschenberg’s Dirt Paintings. The Elemental Cabinet is the materialisation of the collision of these two forces. It is the constant moral dilemma that the maker must always face. It manifests in different folds of matter, as the collision moves in time and the maker’s choice wavers between the two extremes. It is an unsatisfied search for the equilibrium in perpetuity.