Enrico Gaido

exhibition
Portugal

15 2 2023 – 24 5 2023

Before becoming the title of an exhibition, ‘unfinishabling’ was a term artist invented it to give name to a paradox that appeared at a certain point in the creation process and that has not left it since, the paradox about the end of something that is not finable. It is the paradox of a gerund that indefinitely postpones the end of a process that, by the very definition of the adjective that describes it, cannot end.

The production of a work of art as a finished work/object is a utopia. There is no such thing as a finished work, and it cannot exist. A work is ‘unfinishable’, but the addition of a gerund serves to extend the awareness of its condition to an indefinite time. I am continuing to unfinish something that is unfinishable. It is useful to keep the process of creation in a continuous state of ‘performativity’ (if performance is what an individual accomplishes in a particular place and in a particular time frame), as in an endless game in which only pauses are allowed.

The works that are part of Unfinishabling were born out of play, grown in performance and temporarily paused only to be exhibited.