Survival Does Not Lie in the Heavens looks at Dario Robleto´s ingenious adaptations of nineteenth-century folk traditions to explore mortality and memorialization. Robleto´s sculptural objects use the model of the folksy mantelpiece keepsake-the elaborately framed photograph, the trophy, commemorative embroidery-and counter their traditionally saccharine, sentimental appeal with brilliant conceptual gestures. Thus, paper pulped from soldier´s letters home (from various wars) are repurposed to create a keepsake of silk, goldleaf and seashells; a homeopathic treatment for Human Longing includes medicine made from a ground-up recording of Sylvia Plath; and a framed memorial to Marie Louise Meilleur, who died at the aged of 117, includes hair lockets made of stretched audiotape recordings of other supercentarians. Throughout these works, Robleto´s concern is with the human management of death through objects, affirming that the task of survival takes place here on earth.
