Grace
2025
Wall plinth, knife, metal stand, steel cable, diamond
70 x 15 x 15 cm
All images © Fábio Colaço
2025
Wall plinth, knife, metal stand, steel cable, diamond
70 x 15 x 15 cm
All images © Fábio Colaço
A diamond rests with geometric rigor on the center of a white wall plinth. Above it, a sharp throwing knife is suspended by a steel cable, a millimeter away from the stone. The work stages a tense stillness, where the visual serenity hides a latent and imminent threat. What looks like equilibrium is actually suspension: a state of waiting before the possibility of collapse.
This sculpture operates as an allegory of the present - an era defined by systemic precariousness, in which the structures of power and production maintain the appearance of stability, even as they are collapsing from within. The diamond here is more than a symbol of luxury or value: it embodies the promise of solidity that underpins the capitalist imaginary. However, as Mark Fisher proposes through the concept of capitalist realism, this promise has become an ideological prison, where we cannot conceive of alternatives, even in the face of the ethical, ecological and economic bankruptcy of the current system. The suspended knife embodies the structural threat hanging over this order - not as an act of violence, but as a permanent possibility. It is precisely in this inactive presence that we recognize a model of power that is not necessarily exercised through direct force, but through the organization of a regime of surveillance, discipline and anticipation. The work's tension lies in this architecture of containment - a device that controls through the possibility of cutting, not through its execution. And it is within this tension that the notion of cruel optimism emerges. Lauren Berlant explores this concept through an analysis of the economic, political and affective changes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, especially in the United States, but with global echoes. Cruel optimism appears as a subjective response to crises - people continue to cling to promises of security, progress and happiness even when these promises are unsustainable. The attachment to fantasies of progress, success and stability that, instead of liberating us, keep us trapped in a system that is structurally hostile to a dignified life. The diamond, in this sense, also represents this contradictory desire - beautiful, shiny, but perhaps complicit in the very blade that threatens it.
“Grace” (2025) thus summons us to confront the present not as a time of stability, but as an instant suspended between appearance and collapse. The grace that the title evokes is neither divine nor saving - it is fragile, temporary and deeply political.
This sculpture operates as an allegory of the present - an era defined by systemic precariousness, in which the structures of power and production maintain the appearance of stability, even as they are collapsing from within. The diamond here is more than a symbol of luxury or value: it embodies the promise of solidity that underpins the capitalist imaginary. However, as Mark Fisher proposes through the concept of capitalist realism, this promise has become an ideological prison, where we cannot conceive of alternatives, even in the face of the ethical, ecological and economic bankruptcy of the current system. The suspended knife embodies the structural threat hanging over this order - not as an act of violence, but as a permanent possibility. It is precisely in this inactive presence that we recognize a model of power that is not necessarily exercised through direct force, but through the organization of a regime of surveillance, discipline and anticipation. The work's tension lies in this architecture of containment - a device that controls through the possibility of cutting, not through its execution. And it is within this tension that the notion of cruel optimism emerges. Lauren Berlant explores this concept through an analysis of the economic, political and affective changes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, especially in the United States, but with global echoes. Cruel optimism appears as a subjective response to crises - people continue to cling to promises of security, progress and happiness even when these promises are unsustainable. The attachment to fantasies of progress, success and stability that, instead of liberating us, keep us trapped in a system that is structurally hostile to a dignified life. The diamond, in this sense, also represents this contradictory desire - beautiful, shiny, but perhaps complicit in the very blade that threatens it.
“Grace” (2025) thus summons us to confront the present not as a time of stability, but as an instant suspended between appearance and collapse. The grace that the title evokes is neither divine nor saving - it is fragile, temporary and deeply political.