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Installation art seems made for its own Rube Goldbergifition, attachments and strings, pulleys and hangings: the appliances for hanging become the art objects themselves. Why do we like Rube Goldberg machines and their absurdification of the device. Is it comedy? The world rendered caricature? There is an undercurrent of nihilism, of angst and cynicism toward technology, neutering mechanical complexity as childlike confabulation. An angst or nihilism that subtly pervades Bock's work. As the PR says, Bock "‘profanes’" the exhibition space, contorted into subtly absurd gestures. "Katinka Bock chose Avalanche as the title of an exhibition in a country where it never snows but which is on the verge of collapse, like so many others." The exhibition, its context, Sao Paulo, the art, its function, is made into cartoon, a fantastical contraption, a comedy device replacing actuality, a fantasy which is easier to deal with.
