"Reflections"
Medium: *60,000 spools of thread
(left), 23 convex mirrors (right)
Permanent
Installation at the Centro Medico Train Station, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Commissioned
by the Government of Puerto Rico
Completed December 2004
* partial funding by Coats and Clark
Artist Statement
"Reflections" is a site-specific work, constructed from 60,000 spools of thread, which coalesce into a photo-realistic image when seen reflected in convex mirrors mounted on an opposing wall. My intention was to utilize the element of surprise to create a brief interruption in the lives of people as they move through the Centro Medico Train Station.
Given the proximity of the train station to hospitals and medical facilities, the soothing subject matter, composition, and colors accentuate the chapel-like aura of the site, offering a momentary break from the chaos of daily life. In addition, the imagery of sky and clouds reflected on a calm ocean is a subject matter that all the people of Puerto Rico can appreciate.
The work is installed such that viewers first perceive the spools of thread as a random arrangement of colorful cylinders, getting only a hint of the inherent imagery from the entrances to the train station. It is only after people walk towards the escalators that the thread spools become visible in the convex mirrors, revealing the imagery of clouds and sky reflected in a calm ocean. This shift in perception functions as a dramatic mechanism to present the idea that there is no one truth or reality, emphasizing subjective reality vs. an absolute truth.
Because people will be in motion, the images seen in the mirrors continuously change. As people step onto the escalator and descend to the lower platform, the reflections in the mirrors gradually dissolve from seascape to the neutral gray ceiling and blue skies seen through clear glass skylights above.
Devorah Sperber is a New York-based artist whose sculptures, composed of thousands of ordinary objects, negotiate a terrain between low and high tech. Her labor-intensive works explore repetition and the effects of digital technology on perception, scale, and subjective reality. -Patricia Phillips, Executive Editor, Art Journal
She is one of twenty two *international artists invited to participate in "The Public Art Project of Puerto Rico," a major art initiative promoted by the Governor of Puerto Rico, where over 90 public art projects and interventions have been integrated in urban areas, train stations, parks, plazas, beaches and general infrastructure.
*International
artists: Dennis
Adams, Hugo Vidal (Argentina), Devorah Sperber, Cristina Piffer (Argentina),
Antonio Muntadas (Spain), Fernando Botero (Colombia), Ann Hamilton, Jorge
Pardo (Cuba / USA), Vito Acconci, Rafael Ferrer, Ming Fay (China / USA),
John Ahearn & RigobertoTorres, Tom Otterness, Red Grooms, Kenneth Snelson,
Pepón Osorio, Isamu Noguchi (Japan / USA), West 8 (Holland), Lot/ek (Italy/
USA), . Liliana Porter (Argentina / USA), Lindsay Daen (New Zealand),
Ivette Soler
© Devorah Sperber Inc. 2000
