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Escape from New York, Curated by Matthew Deleget, The Engine Room, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealandposted April 22nd, 2010
Mark Dagley, Final Sequence, 2007 April 22 – May 8, 2010 The Engine Room MINUS SPACE is delighted to announce the group exhibition Escape from New York at The Engine Room, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand, from April 22 – May 8, 2010. Curated by Matthew Deleget, the exhibition surveys reductive strategies by 29 artists living in and around New York City. Each artist will present a single small work, as well as an open letter to the local community of artists. Escape from New York originated at Sydney Non Objective, Sydney, Australia, in 2007, and later traveled to Curtin University in Perth in 2008 and Project Space Spare Room, RMIT University in Melbourne in 2009. Participating Artists: Also on view at The Engine Room: Collective Monochrome: Billy Gruner & Sarah Keighery. SUPPORT MINUS SPACE’s programming is made possible by the generous support of The Golden Rule Foundation, as well as individual donors. We thank you! Bibi Calderaro: Pineal Action IV, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted September 12th, 2009
Pineal Action IV, 2009 September 12 – October 17, 2009 We are delighted to announce a new solo project by Brooklyn-based, Argentinian artist Bibi Calderaro. Bibi is a multi-disciplinary artist working in installation, performance, film/video, photography, audio, and language. Her project at MINUS SPACE, entitled Pineal Action IV, will be the fourth in a series of performance installations where viewers are invited to physically interact with her work. Her installation will consist of a single large, irregularly-shaped piñata, approximately five feet in diameter, suspended from the ceiling. The paper piñata will be covered with layers of language excerpted from the theory of aesthetics, as well as texts about human perception. A list of writings used to create the piñata will be available at the gallery. The word piñata comes from the Latin word for pine nut, pinnea. The pineal gland in the human body, whose name reflects its pine nut shape, sits between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. According to ancient and recent studies on the human brain, it apparently acts as the hinge or connector between the two hemispheres. The French philosopher and scientist Rene Descartes referred to this gland as the seat of the soul and the place in which all our thoughts are formed. Similarly, yogis are also aware of the significance of the pineal gland. In Hatha Yoga, there is a technique called Kechari Mudra where a yogi places their tongue at the back of their mouth and into their nasal cavity near the pineal gland in effort to achieve a state of deep meditation. For Pineal Action IV, visitors are invited to hit the piñata with a stick, one blow per visit, until it breaks apart and crumbles into pieces on the floor. About her project, Bibi remarks: “In my personal quest for meaning, the ideas of destruction and creation are two forces that constantly interact and fluctuate, as in a tide. Tracing and erasing and tracing. Shaking and moving and shaking. Dying and living and dying. The physical interaction in this work aims at freeing the energy of the visitors, to shake bodies and move minds.” Bibi’s new publication, PRESENT: Selected Writings 2008-2009, documenting her recent performance at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA, will also be available at MINUS SPACE’s bookstore. Bibi Calderaro has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including at museums such as P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA, Bronx Museum of the Arts, El Museo del Barrio (all NYC), Museum of Modern Art, National Museum of Fine Arts (both Argentina), and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Spain). She is the recipient of awards from the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Aaron Siskind Foundation, among others. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Art Museum at Princeton University (New Jersey), Museum of Modern Art, and National Museum of Fine Arts (both Argentina). Bibi holds an MFA from Queens College/CUNY, NY, and a BA from Wesleyan University, CT. Editor’s Pick, ARTCARDS, October 2009 SUPPORT MINUS SPACE
Escape from New York, Curated by Matthew Deleget, Project Space Spare Room, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australiaposted May 8th, 2009
May 8-29, 2009 RMIT University School of Art and Sydney Non Objective present contemporary non-objective practice from MINUS SPACE New York. A survey of reductive strategies by artists living in and around New York City. Presenting a single work from each artist, as well as an open letter to the artist community affiliated with RMIT Non Objective. The exhibition originated at Sydney Non Objective in 2007, and later travelled to Curtin University in Perth in 2008. Participating Artists SUPPORT MINUS SPACE extends a heartfelt thanks to artists David Thomas and Billy Gruner for bringing the show to Melbourne! Additional thanks to Daniel Argyle for his assistance.
FINAL WEEKEND: MINUS SPACE at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center/MoMAposted May 1st, 2009
Installation view Closes Monday, May 4, 2009 The exhibition is curated by artist, Brooklyn Rail publisher, and P.S.1. Curatorial Advisor Phong Bui. The exhibition marks MINUS SPACE’s 5th anniversary. We greatly thank curator Phong Bui and the remarkable staff at P.S.1, the participating artists and their galleries, and our generous donors, whose financial support made this exhibition possible. Exhibiting Artists PLEASE NOTE: Our exhibition in P.S.1’s Boiler Room space closed on January 26, 2009. Bibi Calderaro’s PRESENT, An Interview with the Artist by Karen Schifanoposted April 15th, 2009
For three hours, twice a week, artist Bibi Calderaro “shows up for work” at a white formica-top desk in the café at P.S.1, in an ongoing performance of her work, PRESENT, part of the Minus Space exhibit (which has been extended through May 4). On the desk are a manual typewriter, a stack of well-worn books, and an “out-box” where Bibi places typewritten thoughts that are her responses to readings. These pages of poetic insights and musings are offered to the public to carry away with them. On the wall behind the desk is a dark spiral shape on paper, which upon closer view is a list of book titles, books that Bibi is slowly working her way through, and sharing with her audience at P.S.1. An intimidating but intriguing group of books, seemingly covering almost every topic you can imagine, this list, and the wonderful generosity of sharing her search with random strangers, is what inspired me to conduct an online interview with the artist.
Karen Schifano: What is it like to be out in a public space doing your own personal search, one that normally one does in a library or at home on the laptop, and also connecting socially and intellectually with the audience at P.S.1? Do you feel self-conscious, or exposed in any way – or do you enjoy the interactions? Any anecdotes to share?
Bibi Calderaro: I have never been able to read in the silence of the library. I need a constant but low- level noise to help me concentrate in what I’m reading. The fact that there is no formal audience helps me do my thing as well. For the most part while I read the people around me are not even aware of me performing. It is only when I start typing that they realize something is taking place other than just a casual reader by the corner, or when they go around the room looking at the art in the show that they see the out-box with my typed thoughts and might stop to ask what I’m doing. Some of these sporadic chats are long, maybe hours. A few weeks ago a lovely person stopped by for a brief time in the beginning and then came back after seeing the rest of the shows at P.S.1, pulled a chair by my side and chatted with me for more than an hour. Another time, just as I was getting ready to leave and had my last thought of the day out, a woman who had been sitting across from my desk approached me and showed happiness and gratitude for the fact that I was giving out a written piece. Then her friend got closer and upon reading my thought over her shoulder exclaimed “Oh but that’s just you!” Throughout the development of this piece my writing has changed quite a bit. In the beginning I might have used some pronouns, where after a few weeks at work I erased them from my vocabulary almost completely, trying to condense a thought to its most abstract yet open possibilities. It is quite amazing to me that such a thought could touch someone’s core self so that that person recognizes herself in it.
KS: So what led you to the idea for this performance?
BC: I search for and aim at a more direct experience with art, both from within myself and from the viewer/spectator. I think performance was a logical development within my overall art practice. Certain aspects of my last and only performance were not fulfilling though. Although what attracts me is the impermanence of performance, I was unsatisfied with the relationship with space and context that it lacked. Having been invited to participate in the Minus Space show, it was clear to me that performance was the way to go. One early morning I walked past a coffee-place and saw a person reading and writing by the window, no laptop involved. I immediately fell in love with the idea of going back to reading and writing without the help of an electronic device, going back to books and handwriting or typing mechanically and leaving a physical trace of the process involved in thinking, writing, languaging.
KS: Would you explore your title a bit? I remember you saying that there are three different ways of reading the word “Present”. Could you elaborate on this? In your accompanying statement for the piece, you mention Walter Benjamin’s concept of history. Can you explain what that is, and discuss why it’s important to you at this time to delve into the area of study that you’re sharing with the audience at P.S.1?
BC: I just recently thought of the possibility of ideas being able to wilt. If this is so, it is because in some level they are alive, they are born or aborted, they are nurtured or not, they die instantly or survive our many doubts, they rot if you keep them for too long without transforming them into something else (a text, a materiality, a gesture of love, an action), also if one is to tautologize them into the obvious they can refuse to go beyond the immediate. They also wilt if kept for too long with the same water —is our brain also 70% fluids? I wonder about these things as I think of the title for the action I am conducting at P.S.1: Present. It is in the present as the elusiveness of the duration of each moment that one may rescue a thought or let it go. I wonder how an author who writes novels experiences this, and how it was in times of Cervantes, when it was all handwritten, no aids of typewriter or computers. I also delve into the possibility of the discarded thought as materiality. To present is to allow for the thought to go forward, to give some air and light, some watering, some extra thought, to the first intuition. It also immediately involves the other, since one would not talk about presenting a thought to oneself, but rather giving it some sort of legible shape so that another subjectivity may grasp some kind of meaning from it. It is also in the present as a gift that I think of both when the thought is brought about in whichever organ it is that it first develops, and as the thoughts being put out there as text, as a piece of work on a humble piece of paper, as part of a fluid poem with no end in sight and that is already around the world in the hands of so many people who have taken them. Present is also a present in the form of time that enables the thoughts of others to present themselves to me. It would be wonderful if we could live as human beings in this entangled world of words with only the present in mind. It has been and still is the practice of many to stay in touch with the present, to allow only the present to be present, and not have pre-sent thoughts about the future, near or far. But we have memories and thus we have traditions which we are free (are we really?) to follow or not. And so we have a history, a heavily loaded history with many, many words. Some of which have been set in stone, some others just on paper, and now in cyberspace. Throughout the millennia we have managed to follow some of these thoughts, interpreting and re-interpreting them with no end. One of my aims in Present is to search for the moments in which an author has allowed his/her subjectivity —consciously or unconsciously, whether we think that’s a possibility or not— to take over their thoughts, their main thesis. The image of the snowball comes to mind, as a small thought that is translated into words, then rolls onto another subjectivity where it catches on and becomes bigger and bigger, covered by more and more snow-words. Yet this new bigger snowball is not the original snow-word, it is just there, covering it. As the snowball rolls throughout history, one can only imagine the original snow-words being kept small and nuclear within the core of huge traditional snowballs. Only in an avalanche is it possible for the original snow-words to become free of the weight they carry around as interpretations have piled upon them in snowflake shapes. This is what interests me of Benjamin’s idea of History. The way I understand him is there is always some violence involved in the uncovering of thoughts to their original. Yet, since we are not free from interpretation, we must build yet another context for these original words. It is in this process that we may find the only possibility for redemption as we take possession of one’s past. According to Benjamin we can only possess our past if we can quote it.
One of the many layers of Present is where I read texts in order to find quotes that I will use in a future performance. I have always felt an attraction for the meaning of words, their epistemological value, if we may put it that way. It has always amazed me usually how close words are to their original meaning, yet how covered this meaning is sometimes and how this drifting occurred. When I choose the texts for the performance I am aware of the resonance each discipline may have with a present situation —i.e. economic, social, personal. I am after the original thought, the originating word for the snowballed theories that lead our lives today, in 2009, as a humanity that inhabits one world and who could have, by now, learnt to live together in peace, harmony and with respect for each other as individuals in difference. Could this be called inter-subjectivity —and can it replace globalization?
KS: Is this “snow-word thought”, the original thought, also the place where the author allows his/her subjectivity to take over their ideas? How do you tell the difference between the original thought/idea, and all of the layers that have accrued over time? Are you also thinking about the myths we live by, and how our own subjectivities would influence how we receive these ideas? Years ago I read some of the French poststructuralist philosophers and I remember the notion that language seems to be structured by the particular time in which is it being used, and so thought is almost held captive by its context. One would have to analyze the syntax of the language itself to extricate the meanings behind the words. And we in the present, in our own particular historical context, would never entirely understand. (I may have this confused though). Anyway what kinds of ideas/books are you following – I know that the list is part of the documentation for the performance – what areas are of interest to you in this search?
BC: Areas of interest: how thought is formed, how theories are formed, how both of these are engrained or not in culture and vice-versa, what role does language play in this process, the possibilities and conditions for communication. As well, how do we as societies construct behaviors that lead to responsibility, civility, free individuals (do we?); what are the limits of individuality and what conditions are necessary for subjects to engage in inter-subjective processes, how do these extrapolate to group behavior. Gorgias, the Greek philosopher, is claimed to have theorized in his lost work On Nature or the Non-Existent about exactly the above, saying that 1- Nothing exists; 2- Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it; and 3- Even if something can be known about it, knowledge about it can’t be communicated to others. Then again, I am still searching, curious; open to communication. In a lecture about Kant and a re-reading of modernist art after his aesthetic theories, David Carrie, one of the panelists, ended by saying that it is usually the case that experience overthrows the system. I think this is exactly what I mean when I say that people’s own subjectivities bleed into their theories, just as they must bleed into their systems of belief. I just don’t know how it could be thought to be otherwise, even with the most deadpan, watertight theories. Could I prove this? Take it out of the realm of the intuitive and make it itself a theory? Not sure. I have in my list of future readings a category of biographies of certain thinkers. Yet, then again, these are all interpretations. The other day I watched a PBS documentary titled “ The Ascent of Money,” where many so-called economists basically state that underlying all of the economic theories, their reasons to behave one way or the other are intuitive, have to do with their ability to read these intuitions and act accordingly than with a rational understanding of a given situation.
KS: So what I wonder, then, is what do you/the theorists mean by “intuition”? What makes it up, what determines it. How are emotions interconnected with thought such that a sense of the “rightness” of an idea is arrived at. How do you separate an individual’s particular psychological make-up from their sociological situation, and then the larger history. How do we figure out who to believe and why – would it be because we share similar subjective structures? I have a feeling that you’re looking for universals, and maybe even a spiritual foundation to our historical meanderings: the constant parts of what we call human nature. Am I right?
BC: Well, maybe. For one thing there seem to be no constants, except for the fact that all human beings have the capability of thought and feeling. But then there is the time factor which, applied to the development of civilizations, has been called history and which as well has many different ways of being approached. So let’s go word by word of your long question, and I’m not even sure I can answer or begin to unravel each of them correctly.
“Intuition” BC: Ha! Like I can explain here centuries of thinking about it…let’s give it a try, or at least highlight what’s important for me, here. But in any case what we’re dealing with always is knowledge and how to get at it, I guess. Kant says we cannot apprehend the world in its absolute reality, that Reason is our tool for it but that it is limited and hence there is always a Concept, an Idea, which is not reachable. Bergson, a century and a half later, comes back to it. So did many other philosophers before and after him. Bergson believes there’s two ways in which an object can be known: absolutely and relatively, and that there is a method through which each mode of knowledge can be gained. The latter’s method is what Bergson calls analysis, while the method of intuition belongs to the former. Intuition is an experience of sorts, which connects us to the things themselves in themselves. Bergson defined intuition as a simple, indivisible experience of sympathy through which one is moved into the inner being of an object to grasp what is unique and ineffable within it. The absolute that is grasped is always perfect in the sense that it is perfectly what it is, and infinite in the sense that it can be grasped as a whole through a simple, indivisible act of intuition, yet lends itself to boundless enumeration when analysed. The one thing it is certain one can grasp from within through sympathy is the self. Intuition begins with placing oneself within the Duration. It seems to me that intuition is always related to a direct experience of something, to a non-rational, first-hand, empathic approach to the thing (the world, knowledge). Other people take intuition to be independent of prior experience and knowledge. I don’t share this. I think it is infused with prior experience, knowledge and memory.
“A sense of the rightness of an idea” BC: Ha ha ha. This I guess is absolutely related to the idea of truth and how it comes to relate to the communication of the idea, the thing, the world. Because the problem is there is a world out there and first we don’t know how to “apprehend” it, then we don’t know how to communicate our apprehension of it (remember Gorgias). Ay! It’s getting complicated and I don’t have a PhD in philosophy. So many philosophers by now have worked on the problem inherent in language and how it just doesn’t produce/communicate truth, except maybe through poetry. Then I think of my project Present and I could, and have been, claiming that what I am doing is writing a long poem whose connection is precisely my Duration. Other philosophers have emphasized that everything is interpretation and nothing can escape it. So really there would be no possible rightness to any of these theorists’ ideas, only interpretations. How do I know whether I’m hitting at the idea the way its author intended me to? But then if all these ideas/theories are put to practical trial via their implementation in different activities, (be it physics, economics, medicine, history, philosophy, etc.) the only way we have to measure our successes in the interpretations of the former is through the results they yield. And then we correct ourselves this way or the other, usually we go in zigzags, or in opposites, I guess because our experience tells us that if A didn’t work, then B must be able to work. I mean the most I’m reading these days about the collapse of the financial world, all these theorists are saying is we haven’t been able to learn from History…
“How do you separate an individual’s particular psychological make-up from their sociological situation, and then the larger history?” BC: There is a puddle of water that is an abyss in this. I’m not sure I can separate it, or cross it, although of course I could, I should, but I won’t.
“How do we figure out who to believe and why…?” BC: Ha, ha ha, hahahaha haaaaaaaa (I’m falling in the abyss now, come help me please!!?). I’m not even sure it is about believing, maybe only resonating with? “I have a feeling that you’re looking for universals, and maybe even a spiritual foundation to our historical meanderings: the constant parts of what we call human nature.” I don’t think I am looking for universals, I think I am looking for the thought processes/emotional baggage that has brought us where we are, which is obviously always in flux, shifting, the process and its contents. So is my piece, in constant flux, since it is inherently impossible to pin down a moment, a thought, an experience, an interpretation that would include all the others. But for sure it has to do with the spiritual and with how to approach a development of sorts that could be called a history.
“Am I right?” BC: Yes and no. I guess instead we’re having this conversation, which is much better than a right or a wrong. Two quotes from Sebald’s Austerlitz: “…our most powerful projects are the ones that betray in the most evident way our degree of insecurity…” “…the growing understanding that everything is decided in movement and not in immobility…” If words are not possible and silence isn’t either, what is the exact measure of language?
Bibi Calderaro’s collected writings from Present will be compiled and published in book form and sold in the bookstore at P.S.1. It should be available in the next month or so. All photos courtesy of Marcelo Brodsky.
Books Read During PRESENT, P.S.1, October 2008 – April 2009 The Idea of Usury, B. Nelson Minus Space at P.S.1 Extendedposted January 22nd, 2009
Installation in cafe space Exhibition in cafe space continues until May 2009. (Boiler Room exhibition closed on January 26, 2009.)
MINUS SPACE The exhibition is curated by artist, Brooklyn Rail publisher, and P.S.1. Curatorial Advisor Phong Bui, and includes the work of 54 artists from 14 countries. The exhibition marks MINUS SPACE’s 5th anniversary. Participating Artists Ongoing Performance Minus Space, Curated by Phong Bui, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / A Museum of Modern Art Affiliate, Long Island City, NYposted October 19th, 2008
Exhibition poster October 19, 2008 – May 4, 2009 (Daniel Göttin’s ceiling work in the cafe continues through summer 2009) We are delighted to announce our exhibition at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art in New York. P.S.1 is one of the oldest and largest non-profit arts centers in the United States solely devoted to contemporary art. The exhibition is curated by artist, Brooklyn Rail publisher, and P.S.1. Curatorial Advisor Phong Bui, and includes the work of 54 artists from 14 countries. The exhibition marks MINUS SPACE’s 5th anniversary. We greatly thank curator Phong Bui and the remarkable staff at P.S.1, the participating artists and their galleries, and our generous donors, whose financial support made this exhibition possible. Participating Artists Ongoing Performance Interview Press / Blogs MINUS SPACE at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA, Abstract Contemporary Art Blog, December 18, 2008 Top Ten 2008, by Jerry Saltz, Artnet Magazine, December 15, 2008 (MINUS SPACE is cited in #10) The Year in Art: The Top Nine Shows (and One Event), by Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine, December 7, 2008 (MINUS SPACE is cited in #10) Michael Brennan at 210 Gallery and P.S.1, by Paul Corio, November 16, 2008 Interview with Simon Ingram / MINUS SPACE exhibition at P.S.1, New York, Vernissage TV, November 10, 2008 MINUS SPACE, by Eva Lake, November 10, 2008 MINUS SPACE at P.S.1, The James Kalm Report, November 2, 2008 Update, Henri Art Magazine, November 1, 2008 Reductive Art at P.S.1, by Jon Meyer, October 25, 2008 Gallery Credits Additional Credits
Escape from New York, Curated by Matthew Deleget, Sydney Non Objective, Sydney, Australiaposted August 3rd, 2007
August 3 – September 2, 2007 A group exhibition surveying reductive strategies by artists living in and around New York City. Each artist will present a single work, as well as an open letter to the artist community affiliated with Sydney Non Objective. Participating Artists: SUPPORT
Letters Soledad Arias > view letter Richard Bottwin > view letter Sharon Brant > view letter Michael Brennan > view letter Bibi Calderaro > view letter Mark Dagley > view letter Gabriele Evertz > view letter Daniel Feingold > view letter Kevin Finklea > view letter Linda Francis > view letter Zipora Fried > view letter Julio Grinblatt > view letter Lynne Harlow > view letter Gilbert Hsiao > view letter Andrew Huston > view letter Steve Karlik > view letter Daniel Levine > view letter Sylvan Lionni > view letter Rossana Martinez > view letter Juan Matos Capote > view letter Manfred Mohr > view letter Karen Schifano > view letter Analia Segal > view letter Edward Shalala > view letter Robert Swain > view letter Li-Trincere > view letter Don Voisine > view letter Douglas Witmer > view letter part 1 / letter part 2 Michael Zahn > view letter Three Artists, Three Curators, Praxis International Art, New York, NYposted March 9th, 2007
Bibi Calderaro, Shattered Vision Being Healed by Sound, 2004-05 March 8 — April 3, 2007 Three artists selected by three curators featuring MS artist Bibi Calderaro. Click here for short video of work that includes random sound. Interview with Bibi Calderaro, by Rossana Martinezposted January 1st, 2004
The following interview was published on MINUS SPACE in December 2003 in conjunction with Bibi Calderaro’s spotlight exhibition.
Rossana Martinez: Faith, fertility, atoms, soul, and emptiness are some of the things you mention in your statement. I am curious to know what faith means to you in your work? What does fertility mean in your work?
Bibi Calderaro: The idea that forms carry an inner balance, strength, and the potential for provoking thoughts and feelings is neither new nor original. Some call it spirituality in art, and I guess the term “faith” is closely related to these concepts. Faith to me is informed by tons of micro and macro pieces of information that shape our individual systems of belief. Faith does not need a group of reference in order to exist; it is not related to any particular religion or creed. In my current body of work, faith is the hope that some plastic pieces, when arranged and assembled in a particular way, will direct the viewer’s attention to a set of beliefs that will enable feedback, transformation, and change. This process — or any in which one’s thoughts, feelings, ideas, and experiences are not left inert — will occur not only within one specific realm of experience, but hopefully beyond it. This is what I recognize as communication. Fertility in my work is deeply related to the above; it is the possibility for this transformation to occur. I would say that faith is in the mind of the beholder, while fertility is in the piece itself. Both forces need to be there in order for some change (communication, dialogue, etc.) to occur and be sensed. Both terms also carry a strong acknowledgement of the other, a concept that I believe is deeply neglected and existing in oblivion. In a broader sense, faith is the mental forces involved in the development of the complex set of ideas that we call contemporary art practices. The whole of contemporary life, as we perceive it, involves faith as well. [Whenever I think of faith, the image of plants comes to mind. Mostly trees...how they stay upright. I guess it is the same in us — how we grow upwards against gravity, even how we evolved into homo erectus. Although these are physical forces and faith is a mental force, I think the image still applies, since there exists some kind of will to be that is certainly embodied. No matter how dark the future appears to be, life expresses itself in spite of humankind's past and present efforts to destroy it. The words "construct" and "destruct" both carry the root word "struct" (as in structure) to which the prefixes "con-" (build/erect) or "de-" (annihilate/unmake) are added.]
RM: How did these abstract concepts become physical objects?
BC: It is hard for me to say which really came first. I think they were first physical objects, from which the abstract concepts sprang and then, in turn, transformed the physical objects. This process happened more than once and in multiple directions while I developed the work. There is a lot of back and forth in my practice.
RM: I know you move between video, installation, photography, etc. How did you determine which materials to use? How do each of these media relate to the other?
BC: In this particular body of work, I liked the idea of using banal, colorful, readily-available acrylic pieces. I think it strengthens the idea of the unavoidability of faith in every set of ideas and mental constructions. I use various media to disguise my ultimate goal of deconstructing and exposing its particularities. I do this in order to acknowledge the systems of belief that sustain the specific medium, while inviting the beholder’s imagination to come forth and complete the pieces. This is something I don’t usually think about while working, but which is common to all my work no matter which medium I use.
RM: Your “Structures of Faith” were created over the past two years. How did your concept evolve during this time?
BC: In the beginning the idea of faith was not expressly present, although, in some ways, it was the only thing that glued the work together. I recognize, however, that I owe to the birth of my daughter not only the genesis of this project, but the inevitable push of that life force. At first the pieces were intended to be toys, with which my daughter could develop abstract concepts while playing with shapes and colors. After I realized they were my toys, they remained the same in form, but I suddenly didn’t know what to do with them. They were not articulated with pins, but were just temporary forms held together by gravitational forces and tensions. They stayed like this for about a year until it became clear to me that I wanted the viewer to be able to handle the pieces. So I had to develop a way of keeping the pieces together on their own, otherwise it would have been frustrating rather than “fertilizing” for the viewer. At this stage it also became clear to me that the work as a whole was about male and female forces — how they interact and push one another. Thus, the pins and the shapes were developed accordingly as male and female parts that related to one another. It could also be said that the structures are about life and death and the transformation that occurs therein. I see the whole body of work as still in progress, and I want to explore further the scale, as well as the methods for standing and implementing the structures at various sites — institutions, public spaces, etc. As for the video, my footage had been sitting around for two years without any ideas on how to edit it. One day, while rewinding the footage, I realized that I wanted the whole thing moving in fast forward. At that moment, it became clear to me how my artistic process can mature, develop, and change over time without consciously being influenced by the outside world. Additionally, I am thankful for my garden and to the philosopher Gilles Deleuze for revealing to me the metaphor of weeds. Weeds grow underground, without our noticing, until they materialize one day as green subversive beings. The system that sustains things underground is nurtured by faith as well.
RM: I know you were born in the US, but raised in Argentina. I can’t help but think of the incredible and rich history of abstract, Concrete, and Neo-Concrete art in South America. I am specifically thinking of artists, such as the Brazilians Hélio Oiticia, Lygia Clark, and Lygia Pape, as well as the Venezuelan Gego, among others. Do you see yourself as a participant in this tradition?
BC: I hope so. Of course I think I am strongly influenced by them, and I hope that my work is reflecting upon contemporary issues, as well as rethinking paradigms set forth by them. I do see similarities in methodology, such as the use of elements like leisure, pleasure, and tactile/bodily experiences. I also believe that art is not there to illustrate, represent, or denounce the outside world, but rather to bring about different ways of exploring and experiencing it, both mentally and physically. I also use language as a creative medium and the idea of spirituality.
RM: The way you phrased your statement on the site is reminiscent of a concrete poem. Additionally, the spoken language you included in your “Structures of Faith” video is very abstract. Can you discuss how you use language?
BC: Language is the first tool we are given to mediate with this world. It is passed on to us, mostly through our mothers (thus the term “mother tongue”). To me language is one of the most fertile media available. I not only use it as it is given to us, but I like to invent words and structures, again following the tradition of Concrete and Neo-Concrete artists. In the case of my statement, it is one of a series that I began in 1998 when I realized that language was as creative an element as any other medium I was working with. For this reason I do not follow the format of a traditional statement — providing answers or explaining ways of responding to a piece. Instead, I use this opportunity to add a new dimension to the work while revealing certain clues about a particular work. My statements are shaped more in the form of a poem, in which I may invent words or use other ways to trigger the viewer’s imagination. In my video I start by using words to state an idea. Then the words become a list suggesting urban architectural constructions while questioning the relationship between words and their meanings. For the video, I also decided to have the text (in English) read by someone with a strong immigrant accent, thereby adding another dimension that points to post-/neo-colonialism issues.
RM: Finally, you intend the viewer to handle and manipulate your small plastic structures. How important is the viewer’s participation in your installations? What would you like the viewer to experience when handling your structures?
BC: In all of my work, the viewer’s participation is very important. In some pieces participation is less overt and simply used to trigger mental processes like imagination. In other works, such as my plastic structures, participation involves actual touching. In either case, the degree of involvement on the part of the viewer is not important, as long as the piece initiates a transformation in the viewer’s mindset from when he/she first arrived to the site of the work. In summary I want these structures to work in the same way rosaries do — as pocket-sized, jewelry-like objects one keeps in the hands while the mind is utterly still — no actions, thoughts, or feelings. I believe this vacuum can be a fertile ground, in which to transform experiences, perceptions, and attitudes towards the world. |
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