Drone Wing 2013

Inigo Manglano-Ovalle made this, it looks like a drone wing, but it’s more like a ghost of a drone wing. The way it hangs there suggests a presence, but also an absence, like a memory floating in space. I wonder what it was like for Inigo to make this. Did he start with a drawing, or did the form emerge more intuitively? It feels like a study in lightness and tension, the way the fabric stretches and curves. And those circular cutouts—they give it a kind of skeletal elegance. There’s something about the monochrome palette that makes me think of early aviation experiments, all those pioneers trying to defy gravity. Maybe Inigo was thinking about them too, about the history of flight and the promises, and also the perils, of technology. It puts me in mind of Robert Gober, and his ghostly sculptures which make the viewer think about the body.