ART UNDER THE CHILDREN'S
MUSEUM
works by
Anna Maria Maiolino,
Gonzalo Diaz
At the Children's Museum, in downtown San Diego, one would expect to find InSITE's artists presenting works that have something to do with children. Strangely, this is not the case at all.
Anna Maria Maiolino's "There Could Be More of These" hints
at a chance to play around a bit because it consists entirely of clay -- hundreds of coils
of it varyingly arrayed in piles and rows in a huge space divided from the main part of
the museum by a large pane of glass. Given its visibility from the museum's front door,
it's easy to imagine kids using that clay to make dinosaurs and penguins and the like. But
the children at the Children's Museum can't touch the stuff. This is art that's formally
dressed, and it doesn't like to get mussed-up.
The work's pedigree originates in gestural
Abstract Expressionism, which produced some of the best painting of the century. Here,
however, the style is played out in sculptural terms; with the clay substituting for paint
and the room substituting for the canvas. Unfortunately, the hard physical realities of
the three-dimensional world and the inconvenience of gravity conspire to doom most
attempts at gestural sculpture to rigidity and weightiness. "There Could Be More of
These" does not escape this fate.
In formal terms, and as a sitework, the piles' relationship to the space they're in seems
arbitrary. The same coils of clay -- more or less of them -- could be transported to a
differently proportioned space, differently arrayed according to the character of that
space, and the piece would be essentially the same.
And what of this clay? Is it the earth under our feet, the ground we walk and drive upon
pursuing InSITE97, now made art? If it were, this fact would bind the work to its site in
at least one meaningful and interesting way. But there's no indication that this is the
case, leaving the work neither meaningful nor interesting.
Just a few steps away, however, is a very meaningful and interesting
piece that benefits very much from the characteristics of its site: Gonzalo Diaz'
"The Way of the Cross."
A vital element of Christian iconography. "The Way" consist of 14 distinct
scenes representing specific incidents leading Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. In
Roman Catholicism, these events are the focus of worship and appear in forms ranging from
highly detailed paintings and sculptures to simple Roman numerals placed on the columns or
walls of churches.
No doubt, the supporting columns in a large, lightless room under the Children's Museum,
inspired Diaz' effort. Within the space are a total of 21 columns, arranged in three rows
of seven. By using two of these rows, the artist has the number he needs for "The
Stations."
At the foot of each of the columns, dimly illuminated by a clip-on lamp, is a polished
steel roman numeral between I and XIV.
At eye level, in deep blue neon tube shaped like handwriting, are fourteen words, one on
each column, and all in Spanish: synecdoque, enfasis, catacresis, antonomasia,
hiperbaton, metafora, eufemismo, apostrofe, elipsis, metonimia, oximoron, hiperbole,
enigma, extenuacion.
The English equivalents of these words; all of which come from the domain of rhetoric;
are easily found without recourse to a bi-lingual dictionary. Metonimia, for
example, is metonymy in English, and refers to a figure of speech that uses the
name of one thing to represent another thing which it suggests. This is how sense can be
made of the statement: "The pen (suggesting literature) is mightier than
the sword (suggesting force)."
These terms describe, and expose, various mechanisms by which words create meaning and
thereby shape people's thoughts and experience. Generally speaking, religions, especially
fundamentalist religions, don't welcome the application of this analytic perspective to
their statements of faith.
Because of this, Diaz' work can seem iconoclastic, even blasphemous. But the work also
projects a certain spiritual, or at least meditational quality; due in part to the
darkness, warmth and quiet of the space, and to the gentle symmetry of the softly
illuminated elements within it.
The result is a visually, intellectually, and emotionally satisfying work; made possible
by its site, with its twenty-one columns arranged in three rows of seven.