Jinchi Hu

It is perhaps the most famous quote from the brilliant Renaissance artist Michelangelo: “The sculpture is already completely present in the block of marble before I start my work. It is already there, I only have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

Jinchi Hu turns the tables and asks herself: What would happen if the outer figure of the famous David statue were chiseled away or crumbled away? Then the inside would emerge again, the original marble stone from Carrara. To this day, Carrara marble is associated with Michelangelo’s world-famous David, which makes it more expensive than marble from other countries of origin of the same quality.

With her installation, Jinchi Hu shows the origin of the legendary Carrara marble, the Aulella River, which flows through the Tuscan town of Carrara. In the stream bed there is plenty of Carrara marble in the form of river rocks. The artist has photographically assembled the riverbed from many individual shots and printed them on a film that now flows down from the ceiling like a river. In the river lies a single rock: a real Carrara marble stone.