Macchi studied piano as a teenager, during the years of Argentina’s military dictatorship
(1976-83). The five lines of this sculpture, formed by rope held taught by springs, could be read, as its title suggests, as a musical staff. But the staff is un-notated, suggesting an enforced silence or the inability to put something into language. It pins the soft form of a pillow-a site of intimacy-against the wall. Macchi’s work, like that of some of the other artists in this gallery, exposes the uncomfortable tensions between systems of order and the ways that bodies exceed them.
Add your thoughts to the discussion