Raphael Hefti
as yet untitled or is it about wind, impatience, hallucination, neo-horizon, I love silver, skin veneer over a landscape whose air it splits, 2023
Coated polyethylene high-tech ribbon, 320 x 0.2 m, 2023
Courtesy of the artist
Between two ridges bordering a picturesque pasture for donkeys, Swiss artist Raphael Hefti (*1978) has stretched a 320-metre-long and 20-centimetre-wide high-tech ribbon made of specially woven and coated polyethylene. While one side of the ribbon has a dark colouring, the other has a shiny silver surface. The ribbon has to be stretched across the valley with enormous tensile force to create a horizontal line that virtually inscribes itself in the landscape of the Donišnica valley as a second horizon. As always with Hefti, this intervention is an experiment that explores the limits of what is possible: the tensile forces, the approval authorities, nature, technology. If things develop as planned, a new perception of nature will emerge from the many individual experiments with the help of a team of specialists. The ribbon, kept ever-so slightly in motion by wind and weather, stretches a poetic, silvery line across this valley, which is already in itself a man-made intervention similar to the various meliorations and drainage projects made during the time of the Italian Fascists.
Raphael Hefti installation, Raša Valley, 2023. Photo by Labin Art Express.
Između dva brda koja omeđuju slikoviti pašnjak za magarce, švicarski umjetnik Raphael Hefti (*1978.) razapeo je 320 metara dugu i 20 centimetara široku vrpcu visoke tehnologije izrađenu od posebno tkanog i obloženog polietilena. Dok je jedna strana vrpce tamna, druga ima sjajnu srebrnu površinu. Vrpcu je potrebno razvući preko doline golemom vlačnom silom kako bi se stvorila horizontalna linija, koja se kao drugi horizont doslovno upisuje u krajolik Donišničke doline. Kao i uvijek kod Heftija, ova intervencija je eksperiment koji istražuje granice mogućeg: vlačne sile, dozvole ovlaštenih tijela, prirodu, tehnologiju. Ako se stvari budu razvijale kako je planirano, brojni pojedinačni eksperimenti uz pomoć tima stručnjaka rezultirati će s novom percepcijom prirode. Vrpca, koju vjetar i vremenske prilike uvijek lagano pokreću, proteže poetičnu, srebrnastu liniju preko ove doline, koja je već sama po sebi umjetni zahvat, sličan raznim melioracijskim i drenažnim projektima napravljenim u vrijeme talijanskih fašista.