ROCHELLE GOLDBERG
GHOST CENTRALE
SEPTEMBER 16 - OCTOBER 21, 2022
Through the eye of the thief:
"Augustine writes that "to love is indeed nothing else than to crave something for its own sake," and further on he comments that "love is a kind of craving." Every craving (appetitus) is tied to a definite object, and it takes this object to spark the craving itself, thus providing an aim for it. Craving is determined by the definitely given thing it seeks, just as movement is set by the goal toward which it moves. For, as Augustine writes, love is "a kind of motion, and all motion is toward something." What determines the motion of desire is always previously given. Our craving aims at a world we know; it does not discover anything new. The thing we know and desire is a "good" (bonum), otherwise we would not seek it for its own sake. All the goods we desire in our questing love are independent objects, unrelated to other objects. Each of them represents nothing but its isolated goodness. The distinctive trait of this good that we desire is that we do not have it. Once we have the object of our desire ends, unless we are threatened with its loss. In that case the desire to have (appetitus habendi) turns into a fear of losing (metus amittendi). As a quest for the particular good rather than for things at random, desire is a combination of "aiming at" and "referring back to." It refers back to the individual who knows the world's good and evil and seeks to live happily (beate vivere). It is because we know happiness that we want to be happy, and since nothing is more certain than our wanting to be happy (beatum esse velle), our notion of happiness guides us in determining the respective goods that then become objects of our desires. Craving, or love, is a human being's possibility of gaining possession of the good that will make him happy, that is, or gaining possession of what is most his own."
–Hannah Arendt, Love and Saint Augustine
ROOM 1:
Playground, 2022
Cans, chair, skull, rocks, aluminium candy-wrap
Dimensions variable
Consent I
Consent II
Consent III
All 2022
Bronze, patina, wax
Swarm , 2019-2022
5 min loop
Intralocutor: If she remembered all of it the way all of it remembers her?, 2022
Bronze, patina, stainless steel, wax
67 x 36 x 40 cm
ROOM 2:
Consent , 2022
Concrete, shellac, acrylic paint, steel cables, wire, cell phones
Dimensions variable
Can you trust that I didn't.
I wish I could help you more.
Can I offer you.
Holding all of it.
Would be so much.
I can take from you.
I just happened to be here.
Alone like you.
Doing the right thing.
Nothing happened.
Nothing the matter.
Do you believe me?
All 2022
Mixed media on paper
29,5 x 21 cm (each)
