Overall I find Juan Carlos Delgado’s work to be very intriguing. I like that it challenges us to be actively involved in viewing the art. The lack of titles, or titles that simply state the materials used to make the piece, don’t give us any clues as to the artist’s purpose. This requires us to question first, what it is, then what we think it could represent and finally what specifically it represents for ourselves.
The first piece of Delgado’s that really stuck out to me was Object No. 9 2001. I love how he turns stationary objects like a wall and steel desks to show movement. He doesn’t only show physical movement, the wall seemingly eating the chair, but he also shows time. As I look at this piece, I can see that the wall engulfing the chair is a process that is happening over an extensive amount of time. This is one of my favorite pieces of his because it reminds me of some times in school where I would sit in the desk, bored for hours, and feel as if I was just melting into the chair and becoming one. (Obviously not referring to your class Prof. Echeverry J )
The next piece that was interesting to me was the Untitled 2001 piece that consisted of a rug made out of auto glass surrounded by oars with pictures of people on each oar. First I had no clue what was supposed to be going on in the scene, yet when I watched the video, I got an idea. The camera moved to a space in between the rug and the oars and continued to move forward. I felt as in we were being forced to walk a very thin and careful line between death/pain/suffering represented by the glass rug and the spirit world/peace/ and serenity represented by the white oars. It was actually pretty moving. I still have more to think about for this piece.
I think my favorite piece of his is 100 cubes of white light 2000. This installation reminded me of Jean-Claude and Christo’s work. I tried researching and finding the exact location the lights were put into but had no luck. I think that Delgado chose this type of installation with similar motives as Jean-Claude and Christo. To make people look at a place that they might pass by everyday in a new and different way. To bring up questions about what that location may represent to both themselves and the world. I found the lights very beautiful. I think that they represent beauty, peace, and hope. The fact that they were installed at 6pm and taken out the next morning at 8 am is very interesting. I believe the reason behind it could be to show people the beauty in every day. Beauty can come and go and if this installation can encourage you to look twice and try and find the beauty everywhere then that would be awesome.
Overall I really enjoyed Juan Carlos Delgado’s work and I find it to be very postmodern with his usage of installation and multimedia.
Yay! I love when people take the time to observe like artists. The part you said about the passage of time was interesting, and I am about to go look at some more of his art, particularly the auto glass and oars. Good stuff!
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