Mimmo Roselli at OK Harris

With braided rope anchored to opposing walls of the gallery, Mimmo Roselli transforms the OK Harris gallery into a dynamic theater of mismatched vanishing points. Moving under and around the taut hemp rigging, visitors must interact with this work which effectively divides and subdivides the space.

Mimmo Roselli, March 2009, installation view at OK Harris Gallery, New York, photo credit: René Pierre Allen.

Triangulated spaces emerge between strands of rope, creating many dynamic and interesting perspectives depending on the viewer’s vantage point. The ropes also suggest continuity beyond their length in the room. Some of the divergent lines trace directions that could never cross while others seem bound to intersect at an invisible point beyond the wall.

Roselli, who hails from Florence, Italy, views these trajectories as abstractions. For him they are akin to the personal journeys we all take through life, which begin and conclude in uncertain relation to one another. Like the complexity and fortuitousness of life with its myriad possible directions, these lines reflect possibilities.

When fellow Florentine Filippo Bruneleschi discovered perspective at the dawn of the Renaissance, its uses were focused on a more accurate depiction of nature. Now, in the early 21st century, it is intriguing to see how Roselli subverts this rational, mathematical approach to viewing the world around us and, in so doing, yields compelling truths. His lines reflect chaos within the order of the room, illuminating the disparate contingencies that shape our world more than the outward conventions of realism.

Mimmo Roselli, February 14 – March 14, 2009, OK Harris Gallery, 383 West Broadway, New York, New York, tel. 212-431-3600. www.okharris.com.