Santa Fe (Celosias I & II)

In The Life of Forms in Art, the French art historian Henri Focillon wrote that a work of art is not only situated in space but "treats space according to its own needs, defines space and even creates such space as may be necessary to it" Art can express itself in many forms, such as architecture, sculpture, or painting, but only ornamental art is capable of imme diate translation into various different techniques: "It is an art that takes on a highly individual life-although one that is often times drastically modified by its expression in stone, wood, bronze or brush stroke... Even before it becomes formal rhythm and combination, the simplest ornamental theme... has already given accent to the void in which it occurs and has conferred on it a new and onginal existence. Not only does it exist in and of itself, but it also shapes its own environment... to which it imparts form." Cristina Iglesias's works might be described with three words: labyrinth, ornamentation, and language. They form a matrix of metaphors that define and create spaces of their own. Unlike Focillon's understanding of ornamen- tal art as existing in and of itself, Iglesias's works are highly referential-her sources are often literary, but they can be distinctly personal-and loaded with signification that constantly negotiates the boundary between language and the inexpressible. They bring to mind François Fénelon's dictum that any ornament that is only an ornament is too much. Iglesias's work evolved in the context of European and American sculpture during the 1980s and 1990s, whereby the sculpture was expanded into the realm of installation. Drawing on a combination of influences that range from film, and the way in which it uses montage, to architecture and literature, Iglesias's architectural installations and invented spaces are defined by an acute sense of place and time. The navigation of space and time is a primary compositional factor in her work. Iglesias is also interested in the manipula- tion of perception and artifice. The artist's "Hanging Ceilings," resembling gigantic finials, for instance, reverse the order of perception, while her Vegetal Passages, with fiberglass walls covered with bamboo, eucalyptus, and decaying leaves, are actually cast from molds that can be endlessly copied. As in any act of seeing and experiencing sculpture, her installations alternate between secular and sacred references. Another series of Iglesias's, the "Celosias" (Jealousies), is made up of braided-wire lattices or clay panels that form stylized letters. In Spanish the word celosia means both jealousy and jalousie, a shutter made of a row of angled slats. Projected onto the ground or the surrounding walls by lights, Iglesias's obscuring "Jealousies" challenge the viewer to the almost impossible task of deciphering the text they form. The artist states, "At times one might think it would be possible to reconstruct the text by following the traces left by each 3 fragment, and in doing so find the way out." The texts are often comprised of architectural or environmental references found in novels, such as Arthur C. Clark's 1973 sci-fi novel Rendezvous with Rama, in which astronauts are able to decipher some but not all of the secrets of an enigmatic spaceship or, as in the case of her installation for SITE Santa Fe, they reference the sixteenth-century Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, a natural and philosophic history of the New World by the Jesuit missionary Joseph de Acosta. The viewer's participation is crucial to understanding these works. The sculp tures need to be experienced: walked through and around; seen up close or from a distance. Accordingly, the viewer activates the work-setting in motion a continuous veiling and unveiling of its textual references. Iglesias's physical and mental passageways aim at increasing awareness of time and place, yet on another level, they emphasize the transcendental value of language.
Text written by Curator Klaus Ottmann for the exhibition catalog.