Parergon
2018
“Paste up” graffiti (printed and cut paper on wall)
536 x 328 cm
Parergon is a large-scale image of drapery, sourced from a famous sculpture with the body cut away to leave only the fabric that covered it. It was made for one of Skatesónico’s raves, where an indoor skateboard park is transformed into a weekend-long after-party. The piece was created as a way of exploring Jacques Derrida’s article from 1979 of the same name, where the idea of the parergon is used to examine the functioning of Immanuel Kant’s The Critique of Judgment, which established the foundations of modern aesthetic theory. Parergon is a Greek compound noun, with para meaning “beside” or “additional”, and ergon meaning “work”. Aside from highlighting the difficulty of isolating the boundaries of an artwork, Derrida’s article also demonstrates the influence of context in the evaluation of an artwork. The paste up graffiti Parergon meant to do the same. It was an additional decorative element for an electronic music dance party, extraneous yet connected to the situation at hand.