Dario Ré

Objets Vibrant: The Te of Trash

This exhibition draws from the worldview that we live in an animate world—an existence in which life, and thus perceptible vibration, emanates from all objects/beings.

In Chinese philosophy there is a term called Li, which translates as “organic patterning” and is used to refer to phenomena like the grain in wood, the fiber in muscle, the flow of water. It designates a type of order which is too multidimensional, too subtly interrelated and too potently vital to be represented in words or images.

I am interested in this inherent patterning and the threshold at which something abandoned makes itself known as vital.

Objets vibrant while akin to traditions of objets trouvé, readymade or "found art” are not selected—they announce themselves. Each piece enters the exhibition through insistence rather than intention. Whether a dumpstered metal grate or a tarnished hunk of debris, they all make themselves known through a distinct presence.

I do not search for art so much as encounter it, and when I do, it vibrates in my perception and registers as urgent, resonant, a complete work of art.

In Tao philosophy this animate power is called te, “magical virtue.” It is the element of the miraculous which we feel both at stars and at our own ability to be conscious. It is the inherent potency of character that arises when something is fully itself. It is an embodied identity intertwined in the collective.

Objets vibrant exemplifies my attention to the te of trash.

The act of collecting tends to be inconvenient and requires the spontaneous interruption of plans and a reevaluation of my responsibility as an artist. How do I show up for art? Each piece asks me to prioritize art over ease—intuition over efficiency. This creates a beautiful tension between practicality and devotion—between leaving something behind and honoring the call to retrieve it with reverence.

The act of retrieval and display is thus aesthetic and spirito-ethical.

To leave one behind would be to ignore a divine voice. This practice represents a commitment to answering and thus listening. My role is less that of a maker and more that of a witness and responder. By recontextualizing waste, the exhibition asks what we fail to see because we have decided it has no value? A potent question applicable to many a realm.