NUMBER Three
Monica piloni
Non-functional anatomies
from sunday 16.03 — 03.05
Monica Piloni (b. 1978) is a Brazilian sculptor currently based in Brussels and active on the international stage. Her work evokes feelings of discomfort and unease. Since the beginning of her career, Piloni uses the female body, perfectly proportioned according to contemporary ideals, as a device to transmit her critique on today’s age. The idealized body becomes dismembered and torn, envisioning a ghostly whirlwind of contorted flesh and emotions.
The sheer feminism encompasses only the first paragraph of her narrative. Upon closer inspection, her sculptures open up to a more universal discourse of our daily lives—the ubiquitous unease induced by war, neoliberal capitalism, dehumanizing technology, and the shifting of power structures toward hyper-male conservatism. With her sculptures, Piloni says, “Look at the reality we are facing,” yet not without a certain irony. The mangled bodies were created by society itself. The snake bites its tail.
At High Numbers Gallery, Piloni exhibits ‘Odd’ and ‘IdEgoSuperego 20%’, both made of bronze. For Odd, Piloni used her own body during the model-casting and created a radial rather than asymmetrical being. The body points in all directions yet remains faceless; elevates in the air like atransient being yet sits on crutches. IdEgoSuperego20% takes its shape from the scorpion pose in yoga. By once again creating a triangular shape, Piloni alludes to a viscious circle where the ego struggles to feed its own growth and demise.
Although generating a raw and unfiltered view of the body and the world we live in, Piloni’s work remains poetic and sensual. The viewer becomes perturbed but not repulsed. Reminiscent of classical allegories, Piloni merges operatic drama with Eastern resignment. All figures maintain nonfunctional anatomies, reflecting how incapable we as humans have become to evolve—yet flexible at the same time, always adapting to the turmoils of life.
