Sorry No Image (Placeholders)
Claudio Tola

In August, Rib hosted a self-directed residency by artist Claudio Tola, whose works focuses on the making of images — moving and still, digital and analog — treated sculpturally.

Placeholders (working title) stems from Claudio’s time as a production assistant at Rib, when he witnessed and contributed to the silent, transitional process between exhibitions: the disappearance of previous images, their traces filled in, sanded, painted over, and the preparation of new spaces for those yet to appear.

With a site-specific approach that considered Rib’s white cube as well as the surrounding urban environment and the digital sphere, in the past weeks of residency artist Claudio Tola has been making works that linger on and articulate the threshold between showing and hiding, between putting something on display and hiding something from view.

By looking for - or making - instances of missing or hidden images, Tola draws attention to the frames, interfaces, surfaces and devices that mediate their appearance. Building on the evocative power of blank space, the artist aims to expose and question the relations and expectations these structures produce, as well as the material conditions that create our experiences of images.

The exhibition Sorry, No Image (Placeholders) opens on 5 September at 18:00. It will also be on view on 6 and 7 September from 14:00 to 18:00, with the artist in attendance.

This residency project is made possible with the support of CBK Rotterdam.