Snail, 1996

The snail walking on a clear piece of plastic is defeating the gravity of the world. The animal perceives neither a bottom nor a top; the earth is attached to its belly. Francisco Tropa put the rules of the game upside down, as did the Italian artist Piero Manzoni in his pivotal work socle du monde, a steel base placed upside down in the exhibition space. But Tropa adds something that has much to do with the history of his country, Portugal. The snail becomes the symbol of a world where hierarchies are changed, where nature is not something to be conquered but is instead the conqueror, the explorer, the sailor. A snail as an organic Vasco da Gama.