The sculpture marble_calacatta_borghini1.TIFF (2020) presents what looks like a slab of marble leaning on an elegantly handcrafted walnut support. Stone from Italy’s Calacatta region is some of the most expensive on the market, prized for its pure-white background. Yet on closer inspection, the false nature of this work’s material reveals itself: It is in fact a digital image reproducing a veined marble surface, printed onto a sheet of porcelain.
The artist, who is accustomed to working with stone, was herself deceived by the marble recreation when she first encountered it at a slab yard in Los Angeles, making it clear just how far simulations have infiltrated our lives. Surreal and unnerving, marble_calacatta_borghini1.TIFF encapsulates the themes at work in Save As: Where does the physical, tactile world end, and the world of technology and machines begin?