Such Things As Coincidences

If you've been following along with my design ruminations, you'll know that I've been thinking about the effects of mass media on people and culture, and about how to express my thoughts on this concept visually in a collaborative collage piece.

A few days ago, on a jaunt to the Neuberger Museum of Art, in Purchase, NY, I stumbled upon the work of self-described “mechanic artist” Betsabee Romero, and was drawn immediately to this installation. Coincidence? Who knows. I was thrilled to find this, though, given where I am in my own work.

Celosias Interiores (Interior Lattice Windows)

Televisions with etched screens and video

The installation was accompanied by this writing by the artist:

Ellos No Se Ven (They Do Not See Us)

 Tattered television screens

With symbolic lattice

To sift, to descry, to intertwine mass images,

In order to try to reconstruct some

One which may have some truth

You cannot see the television

It goes in the home without having to present any documentation

But eyesight also has its own shields

Culture like a defensive spider

Weaves its own web

It only allows its own prey

Or whatever is left of it to penetrate.

An image of what is real

Behind the lattice they do not see us

We are not the object of the gaze

Of those who oversee the gaze of the world.

According to the gallery statement, Betsabee Romero, one of Mexico's leading artists, “explores the tensions between local traditions and industrialized societies dominated by speed, mass production, and emigration.” Lots of cool cars and car parts in this show. As Romero stated in a placard at the gallery: “The car is by far the object that attracts the greatest aesthetic attention among people of all ages and social classes.” Not going to argue with that.

Here are a few highlights:

Ciudades que se van (Moving Cities), a series of four 60-foot-long tire prints on textiles that hang from the ceiling. The tires were carved with traditional symbolic shapes. Like rolling rubber stamps, back in Mexico the tires were used to imprint streets, towels, and T-shirts.

De Reojo (View from the Corner of my Eye), etched rearview mirrors, gold leaf, video (with sound, running on the wall that you can't see in my photo). Being in this room was intoxicating. The light, the reflections, the sound....

Cuerpos vestidos (Dressed Bodies), shows "the intimate union of two automobiles covered with a burqua.” In her artist statement, Romero talks about anonymous copulation, bodies merging without real connection, in a culture that drives its members fast and faster.