Auto Body Collision

Auto Body Collision, an exhibition by the American artist, Shannon Ebner curated by Cloé Perrone. Auto Body Collision presents a new project based on the notion of collision – on isolated incidents in which two or more moving bodies exert force on each other. The exhibition is the result of the artist’s Roman residency at Palazzo Ruspoli, historical venue of the foundation.

Shannon Ebner’s work exists at the boundaries of photography and sculpture, ar- chitecture and image, seeingreading and writing. For Auto Body Collision, the artist writes a photographic sentence in long form throughout the Palazzo Ruspo- li’s exhibition spaces. For Ebner, the photographic sentence is a way of writing that makes use of the material of images and the material of language in order to produce a system of language which exacts itself in the spatialized form of exhibition.

Ebner’s text for Auto Body Collision is crafted from the vernacular language of ‘auto body collision centers’, places where engines with bodies (automobiles) are brought for repair following collisions. The text utilizes terminology found in advertising copy as a new vehicle for expression: ‘Alignment (ALLINEAMEN- TO), speed (VELOCITÀ, SVELTEZZA, TEMPO DI APERTURA) & suspension (SOSPENSIONE), exhaust systems and large frame straightening for delicate exotic repairs’ are all services provided by collision centers worldwide, including Super Auto Col- lision Inc, American Collision Inc, People Collision Shop Inc, Belle Isle Colli- sion, Motor City Auto & Collision, Four Way Collision & Rstprfng, Maxx Collision, Onyx Collision, Italia Collision, Xclusive Collision, King Collision, Knockers Collision, Marx’s Collision, 3 D Collision, Luxury Collision, Campus Collision, Checker Collision, Kruise Collision, Six Mile Collision, Spectrum Collision, Uni- body Collision, Federal Collision.

Influenced by her recent residency in Rome, the project locates its ‘first colli- sion’ in the Eternal City in order to bring new readings to the meaning of re- cuperation, re-assemblage and loss. Ebner photographed junkyards on Rome’s GRA (Grande Raccordo Anulare) or “great ring road” on the outskirts of the city, in a bid to exit the beauty and decadence of the city’s ancient sites for thegraveyards and oil fields of the imagination. For the exhibition Ebner will showphotographs from the GRA alongside video, large scale letters and discarded lan-guage parts, in what will be the first iteration of a long term project. For AutoBody Collision, Ebner turns the mechanics of reproduction and destruction into an urgent mode of address.