In the mid 2000's I purchased 5.6 acres in the desert of Culberson County Texas. I then proceeded to document front yard fences in various economic diverse neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Growing up in the south I never experienced fences in front yards and this began as the foundation for my interest in the relationship between how this modern architecture influences structures of community and the symbolic function of outdoor monuments. As Mike Davis alluded to “the privatization of the architectural public realm… a parallel privatization of electronic space (elite databases, subscription cable services, etc.) …the middle-class demand for increased spatial and social insulation” all have contributed to the problematics to our understanding and perspectives of “community”. There are two conflictual arguments of fences. The first is that they keep culture in a confined space and develop a sense of culture and aesthetic within a neighborhood. The second is, fences keep intruders out and become a protective device.
According to George Bataille, there is an uncanny logic to the labyrinth. One wanders aimlessly in limbo, as the labyrinth becomes dimensionless. There is no past, or future. The present becomes unstable and therefore a presence of time. The labyrinth is an asymmetrical struggle of lost and found. Bataille reverses the order of the role model for the master and slave, replacing the hero with the monster as the ideal ego. “Labyrinthine structure imposes a simultaneous ban on the immanence of the ego and on the transcendence of the other”
My intent with this proposal is to create a space to eradicate our conception of what preconceived functions fences create. To propose a space to get lost in the present social order of our communities, and illusion of self-sufficiency. ”What is not to lost in time is lost in language or, more generally, in the system of traces.”
Possibility of the Immposible (Proposal for a Labryinth) has attempted to be realized and currently remains a proposal. This project was exhibited as a wall installation unveiling the various influences, constellations and traces the proposal seeks to address. Rather than simply show a digital print, I wanted to extend the notion of how an architectural proposal could be presented. This installation version was shown May 9th, 2013 at Lugar A Dudas in Cali Colombia, No Salir del Labertino (To Not Leave the Labryinth) was curated by Julio Garcia Murillo and Luis Mosquera.
In 2020 I showcased this work again as part of a mulit-site exhibition between Berlin and Mexico City entitled Objects Before and After The Wall on the 25th anniversary fall of the Berlin Wall. The exhibition accompanied a published catalog (Spanish and English) including a text written by the artist “Towards a (de)Composition of (dis)Orientation/Hacia una (des)composición de la (des)orientación”. This essay is the first published work in Spanish by the artist.
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Date: 2010-Present
Medium: Mixed-Media | Installation | Public-Sculpture | Collage | Photography |
Digital print, 24" x 36", photographs, music paper, archival documents, and architectural measurments, dimension variable
