Drone Wing 2013

Here we have Inigo Manglano-Ovalle’s, Drone Wing, a sculpture of... well, a drone wing. It's a bit spooky and sci-fi, hovering there in the gallery like that. I'm struck by its ghostly, almost ethereal quality. The whole piece is rendered in this pale, translucent material, with these mysterious holes punctuating the surface. It’s like the artist is teasing out a conversation between lightness and weight, presence and absence. I think of it like, what if a minimalist sculpture had a secret, like it was trying to tell us something about surveillance, or the military-industrial complex, or whatever. The whole thing gives off an ambiguous vibe. It reminds me a bit of some of Rachel Whiteread's sculptures— those casts she makes of empty spaces. Both artists are playing with how something can be both there and not there. Art is cool like that. It doesn't give you answers, but it makes you ask better questions.