Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain
Atlas (N), 2021

Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain are fascinated by what goes beyond human understanding of the world, and their scientific, mathematical and literary research has led them to develop systems for representing and writing time, space and infinity. Inherited from the conceptual statement and anchored in the use of new means of sound, graphic and plastic creation, their approach is expressed in a rigorous and refined formalism of great poetry. They are particularly interested in the notion and notation of time and the forms it can take, and create new typographies by substituting letters from traditional alphabets with forms from everyday life. These forms are then displayed in exhibition spaces, giving this writing a new materiality.
Atlas (N) has been shown for the first time in Detanico/Lain’s ninth personal exhibition at Galerie Martine Aboucaya in Paris. As soon as you entered the exhibition, a cluster of connected dots formed a single immense constellation, bringing together all the stars in the northern hemisphere sky in a complex shape, the fragility of the pencil on the wall seemingly striving to get as close as possible to that of light.