With the multifaceted work Notes sur cette terre qui respire le feu [Notes on this earth breathing fire] (2017), presented in the Darling Foundry’s Main Hall, Marco Godinho immerses spectators in the spectacular and majestic universe of the Etna volcano in Sicily. Inspired by his reading of Georges Bataille’s description of the physical and emotional intensity of his climb of the volcano in 1937, Godinho decided, in February 2017, to repeat this ascent in order to (re)discover the essence of Bataille’s biographical account.

The title of the exhibition, Un feu permanent à l’intérieur de nous [A Permanent Fire Inside Us], deliberately plays on a reference that is broader than that of the single work presented in the exhibition at the Darling Foundry. By choosing a different title, Godinho inscribes this show in a more universal context, beyond the scope of the works and space of the exhibition. The fire - both light and heat, death and destruction - mentioned in the title certainly refers to the volcano and its core of fire. However, one may also read an evocation of the primary impulses that drive human beings in general, and the artist in particular, in their daily exploration of the world.

Godinho’s work is full of solitary conceptual steps and explorations of diverse territories: border zones, geopolitical edges, symbolic sites. This ambitious and bold initiative is thus a logical continuation of his interest in experiences that transpose philosophical or geopolitical ideas into physical experiences in order to extract their essence and authenticity. More than a remake of Bataille’s experience, Godinho’s act of climbing Etna also takes on the sense of an initiatory journey accompanied by a quest for brute reality and unquestionable danger.

Godinho tirelessly surveys the borders of the world that he visits. He therefore claims a kind of nomadism, questioning his belonging to defined space and demanding his right not to settle down. Just as borders for him are abstract lines that mark out a fictional space to be deconstructed and rethought, the language commonly used to define (non)belonging may be challenged by a conceptual juxtaposition or alteration, or even by a contextual shift. His work is deployed in a permanent quest for new definitions and questioning of society’s supposedly acquired conceptions. 

Excerpts from a text by Kevin Muhlen