EXHIBITION
ABOUT
Syntax Gallery is pleased to present No Gravity, a new solo exhibition by Anna Savi. The project brings together the eponymous installation and the graphic series Light Touch.
The series Light Touch refers to the tradition of seventeenth-century Dutch still life and engages with the genre of vanitas, in which flowers served as reminders of the fleeting nature of life and the inevitability of decay. Here, however, the motif of transience is stripped of baroque decorativeness and moralising; the artist shifts attention from the symbol to the process of change itself.
Watercolour is a key medium in the project: its fluidity, instability, and vulnerability to external impact turn the material into a metaphor for the mutability and fragility of the corporeal. The paper resembles archival fragments; the torn edges of the sheets and the layered structure of the work evoke both botanical atlases and documents damaged by time. The flower is shown not at the height of its bloom and vitality, but in an intermediate state between life and decline. It is this transition that becomes the central theme of the project. Withering here is not a tragic finale, but a natural property of all living things, set against today’s culture of preserving youth.
The inclusion of stabilised flowers acquires particular significance: an object that retains the form of the living after the actual cessation of vital processes.
In the process of stabilisation, the plant’s natural moisture is replaced with a preserving compound, allowing withering to be postponed for an extended period.
Here, stabilisation becomes a form of mummification, an attempt to halt change at any cost. This gesture resonates with the procedures of the beauty industry, aesthetic medicine, and cosmetic practices, where the focus is likewise displaced onto the external surface — and is equally futile.
The contemporary body is placed within a regime of continuous restoration and becomes trapped in attempts to eliminate the very visibility of time, while the desire to prolong youth takes on the features of a peculiar mummification.
Light Touch exists between two states: disappearance and conservation. The project considers change as a necessary condition of existence, reminding us that these very qualities are intrinsic to all living things.
The series Light Touch refers to the tradition of seventeenth-century Dutch still life and engages with the genre of vanitas, in which flowers served as reminders of the fleeting nature of life and the inevitability of decay. Here, however, the motif of transience is stripped of baroque decorativeness and moralising; the artist shifts attention from the symbol to the process of change itself.
Watercolour is a key medium in the project: its fluidity, instability, and vulnerability to external impact turn the material into a metaphor for the mutability and fragility of the corporeal. The paper resembles archival fragments; the torn edges of the sheets and the layered structure of the work evoke both botanical atlases and documents damaged by time. The flower is shown not at the height of its bloom and vitality, but in an intermediate state between life and decline. It is this transition that becomes the central theme of the project. Withering here is not a tragic finale, but a natural property of all living things, set against today’s culture of preserving youth.
The inclusion of stabilised flowers acquires particular significance: an object that retains the form of the living after the actual cessation of vital processes.
In the process of stabilisation, the plant’s natural moisture is replaced with a preserving compound, allowing withering to be postponed for an extended period.
Here, stabilisation becomes a form of mummification, an attempt to halt change at any cost. This gesture resonates with the procedures of the beauty industry, aesthetic medicine, and cosmetic practices, where the focus is likewise displaced onto the external surface — and is equally futile.
The contemporary body is placed within a regime of continuous restoration and becomes trapped in attempts to eliminate the very visibility of time, while the desire to prolong youth takes on the features of a peculiar mummification.
Light Touch exists between two states: disappearance and conservation. The project considers change as a necessary condition of existence, reminding us that these very qualities are intrinsic to all living things.
Ivan Ivanov
EXHIBITION
VIEWS
VIEWS
ARTIST
Anna Savi
Born 1984 in Moscow, Russia. Studied at GITR (Institute for Humanitarian and Applied Studies) with a specialization in Production Design, and graduated from IPSI in 2022.
