Homeless Lamp, the Juice Sucker

For Homeless Lamp, the Juice Sucker, Iván Navarro built a grocery cart out of fluorescent tubes and with it wandered the gallery-lined streets of Manhattan’s Chelsea district. The luminous sculpture evokes the work of Dan Flavin while also referencing an object commonly repurposed by homeless people for storage and transportation. Scored to the Mexican revolutionary song “Juan Sin Tierra” (John the Landless), the documentary video follows Navarro and a friend as they search for public electricity with which to illuminate the sculpture. Presenting the artist as a transient figure, Navarro offers a critique of the inequity of the art world and the difficulties faced by migrants in establishing connections with the place to which they have relocated.