A short paper I wrote on their work. A show that they curated “Apocalypse Now” is currently on display at the Wattis Institute on the San Francisco CCA Campus through January 26th. They gave a lecture at CCA last week that I was unable to attend.
Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla have been working as a team since 1995. Their work takes many forms, order but is mainly exhibited as either video or sculptural installations. Using a blend of pathos and humor, search they investigate political subject matter such as social injustices of war, oppression, and problems with colonialization. They split their time between Puerto Rico and New York, and their work often focuses on the thorny political relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States.
Several of Alloraâ??s and Cazadillaâ??s pieces relate to issues surrounding the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. An area of the island was taken over in 1950 by the U.S. government to be used as a bomb test site and munitions storage. The residents and land owners were displaced with little or no compensation. Hostile demonstrations took place for years as the Puerto Ricans in the community tried to regain this land. When the U.S. military finally gave it up, they turned it over to the U.S. Department of the Interior where it was turned into a wildlife sanctuary. This sanctuary status meant that the U.S. military was not responsible for cleaning up the toxin waste they had created. The video piece â??Returning a Soundâ? involves a local fisherman, Homar who rides the perimeter of the previous bomb test site on a moped with a trumpet attached to the muffler of the bike. The loud trumpet call, powered by the mopedâ??s exhaust, serves as a humorous and celebratory reclamation of forbidden land now returned to Puerto Rico. Homar rides his moped along stretches of land that had been, until recently, forbidden to him. The piece is touches on both subjects of the reclaimation of the land, and on the continuing struggle of dealing with problems of toxic pollution left behind by the U.S. government.
Sound is a common thread in their work. In last yearâ??s Venice Biennale, Allora and Calzadilla created a life-sized hippopotamus for their piece â??Hope Hippoâ? using silt from the Venice canals. Also included in the installation was a man reading the newspaper and a whistle. Their most recent project involves a large bunker-like structure and musicians with various brass instruments playing their own renditions of various reveilles through the slits of the bunkerâ??s â??turretsâ?.
In regards to materials, Allora and Cazadilla have been compared to the Italian Arte Povera movement of the 1960s as well as Post-Minimalist artworks. They believe all material is loaded with histories, cultures, and politics. Similar to the idea of a â??tissue of quotationsâ? consciously employed by the pictures generation, the weight of history is inscribed into the material and cannot be separated from it. Materials are layered with different meanings through time and take on allegorical context. When objects or images are placed side-by-side, the meaning in one material can read through another material. Multiplicity is present in all of their work. In their work I see an organization not unlike a symphony. Images and ideas blend and overlap each other, producing complex and multilayered installations.
Articles and Videos:
Patricia Falguières â??Archipelago,â? Parkett No. 80 2007
Sally Oâ??Reilly â??Trumpets and Turtles,â? Frieze issue 108 June/July 2007
Hannah Feldman â??Sound Tracks,â? Art Forum May 2007
Art 21, Season 4, PBS