Elise van Mourik
Monolith 3
2014
A large block of gray granite, polished on one side, but otherwise untouched. That is what you see at first. Once you notice the tray with four wheels, the illusion is broken: you are looking at a block of polystyrene.
With this unmasking all meaning disappears: gone is the monumentality, gone is the nobility of the material, gone is the history. Although a part of what was once there remains, a sort of after – image, a memory. You find yourself in a fascinating in-between world. There is a block of weightless non-material, which on its own has no identity, and there is the illusion of something that carries a big story within itself. What is more important, what is more present? Or is it that they are both roughly equal in their weight and importance?
