Prolonged Engagement
EFA Project Space, New York
The exhibition “Prolonged Engagement”, a group show that gathered together artists who create aesthetic conditions rather than isolated art objects, takes its name from the traditional models of ethnography, such as participating observation, deep immersion and prolonged field work. The works by N. Dash, Jesal Kapadia, Deana Lawson, Esperanza Mayobre, JJ PEET, Harriet Salmon and Jaret Madera, are not connected by any specific technique or methodology. It is a selection of artists who, through their work, observe the practices of the human groups with whom they live and are devoted to the study of the urban communities that surround them.
In particular, the piece Colirio, by Esperanza Mayobre, captures the attention of the viewer. It consists of a wall made of lens- es of magnifying glasses, where the viewer may glimpse a certain organic form which is repeated in each small cell, not always of equal dimensions, not always in the same position, so that it is impossible to contemplate the work in its totality. Like a wall of cells of an improbable being, or maybe like an accumulation of frames of an impracticable movie, the complete configuration only exists in our minds. It is a conceptual product which is constructed through movement in space and the continuous change in the viewer’s viewpoint. Mayobre was born in Caracas and has lived in the United States for the last seven years; her work raises and synthesizes difficult issues such as illness, immigration and the economic cri- sis, among others.
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Esperanza Mayobre
Colirio (Eyedrop), 2004. Mixed Media. 7ft. x 12ft. x 24in. Installation view. Técnica mixta, 213,3 x 365,7 x 61 cm. Vista de La instalación.
