Tabula Rasa at Studiolo Milan
February 2017
For the exhibition, Yellin constructs a set of fourteen shapeless bodies made of synthetic leather. Full of padding and sewn together with white voluminous seams, these sculptures are characterised by a strong tactile matrix achieved due to the style of moulding and the natural tensions of the fabric.
Titled "BB" (Body Bot), they allude to a zero state of consciousness; as archetypical subjects deprived of any physiognomic definition, they assume the semblance of original individuals with a still empty mental awareness, but with a simultaneous readiness to welcome understanding and experimental learning.
They are deliberately distorted and ambiguous forms, with the appearance of mannequins or dilapidated punching bags, which, hung without their typical supporting chains, lean instead helplessly on the wall, gracefully marking the rhythm in the white emptiness of the space. The monochromatic and three-dimensional shapes, formed through plasticity and consistencies, are cut across by small traces of white paint, which follow the profiles and the main lines of tensions to reveal a consistency in sculptural and pictorial value.
Yellin chooses to develop a work filled with expressive connotations and anthropomorphic allusions, a creative process meant to simultaneously attract and reject, urging the spectator to feel unstable sensorial perceptions directly tied to personal experiences, both intimate and cultural.
As presences moulded following the philosophical thought of Bauman, the bodies assume the appearance of human occupants of a "liquid society", wounded in the arts and certainties, come less to live with than to wait for the dynamics of a world frenetically based around consumption and globalization.
