Fábio Colaço Portugal, 1995
Grace, 2025
Wall plinth, knife, metal stand, leather cable and natural diamond.
80 x 15 x 15 cm
Edition 1 of 3 pplus 1 AP
A diamond rests with geometric rigor on the center of a white wall plinth. Above it, a sharp throwing knife is suspended by a steel cable, a millimeter away from...
A diamond rests with geometric rigor on the center of a white wall plinth. Above it, a sharp
throwing knife is suspended by a steel cable, a millimeter away from the stone. The work
stages a tense stillness, where the visual serenity hides a latent and imminent threat. What
looks like equilibrium is actually suspension: a state of waiting before the possibility of
collapse.
This sculpture operates as an allegory of the present - an era defined by systemic
precariousness, in which the structures of power and production maintain the appearance of
stability, even as they are collapsing from within. The diamond here is more than a symbol of
luxury or value: it embodies the promise of solidity that underpins the capitalist imaginary.
However, as Mark Fisher proposes through the concept of capitalist realism, this promise has
become an ideological prison, where we cannot conceive of alternatives, even in the face of
the ethical, ecological and economic bankruptcy of the current system. The suspended knife
embodies the structural threat hanging over this order - not as an act of violence, but as a
permanent possibility. It is precisely in this inactive presence that we recognize a model of
power that is not necessarily exercised through direct force, but through the organization of
a regime of surveillance, discipline and anticipation. The work's tension lies in this
architecture of containment - a device that controls through the possibility of cutting, not
through its execution. The attachment to fantasies of progress, success and stability that,
instead of liberating us, keep us trapped in a system that is structurally hostile to a dignified
life. The diamond, in this sense, also represents this contradictory desire - beautiful, shiny,
but perhaps complicit in the very blade that threatens it.
The work thus summons us to confront the present not as a time of stability, but as an instant
suspended between appearance and collapse. The grace that the title evokes is neither divine
nor saving - it is fragile, temporary and deeply political.
throwing knife is suspended by a steel cable, a millimeter away from the stone. The work
stages a tense stillness, where the visual serenity hides a latent and imminent threat. What
looks like equilibrium is actually suspension: a state of waiting before the possibility of
collapse.
This sculpture operates as an allegory of the present - an era defined by systemic
precariousness, in which the structures of power and production maintain the appearance of
stability, even as they are collapsing from within. The diamond here is more than a symbol of
luxury or value: it embodies the promise of solidity that underpins the capitalist imaginary.
However, as Mark Fisher proposes through the concept of capitalist realism, this promise has
become an ideological prison, where we cannot conceive of alternatives, even in the face of
the ethical, ecological and economic bankruptcy of the current system. The suspended knife
embodies the structural threat hanging over this order - not as an act of violence, but as a
permanent possibility. It is precisely in this inactive presence that we recognize a model of
power that is not necessarily exercised through direct force, but through the organization of
a regime of surveillance, discipline and anticipation. The work's tension lies in this
architecture of containment - a device that controls through the possibility of cutting, not
through its execution. The attachment to fantasies of progress, success and stability that,
instead of liberating us, keep us trapped in a system that is structurally hostile to a dignified
life. The diamond, in this sense, also represents this contradictory desire - beautiful, shiny,
but perhaps complicit in the very blade that threatens it.
The work thus summons us to confront the present not as a time of stability, but as an instant
suspended between appearance and collapse. The grace that the title evokes is neither divine
nor saving - it is fragile, temporary and deeply political.
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