Metamorphosis of the Mundane

The Art of Wifredo Díaz Valdéz, Cornelia Parker, and Robbie Rowlands

Desconstruyendo: Wifredo Díaz Valdéz

Wifredo Díaz Valdéz. Butaca. 1984.Wood (oak) and jute. 79.5 x 56.5 x 45.5 cm

The exhibition Construir Desconstruyendo (2013) offers an insight into the world of Wifredo Díaz Valdéz where the mundane is deconstructed and reconstructed into creative and unusual wooden dynamic forms. Valdéz, a trained carpenter born in the 1930s in Uruguay, constructs artworks with artisanal precision by taking apart tools, furniture, and daily objects in order to create something entirely new. By carefully studying materiality, forms, and space, the objects are uniquely dismantled. Each offering a particular condition for new life. Some objects maintain a hint of their original structure, others are given an entirely new identity.

The Valdéz metamorphosis is one of a conscientious study of a transformation of the archetypal into the original. The attentive separation reveals a respect for the initial identity that gives birth to a new form. The recycling of art is not a collage through a collection of found objects, but transformed objects of Uruguay craft in a ‘reverse cycle of growth and decay, as well as the course of time as such’(e-Flux). 

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An Exploded View: Cornelia Parker

‘My art is about destruction, resurrection and reconfiguration: an exploration of the secret lives of objects and materials, both strange.’
Parker, Cornelia.

Parker, Cornelia. Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View. 1991. Blown-up garden shed with its contents and light bulb. Dimensions variable.

In When Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991) Cornelia Parker used British army personnel in order to blow up a shed that she would then reconstruct in the moment of suspension. Famous for her novel and odd sculptures, An Exploded View is not meant to discuss the process of artistic production, but the unconscious association created by the action of interruption. The light fixture at the center of the suspended fragments creates shadows towards the exterior continuing the existence beyond it’s geometric and integrating the audience into the sculpture to create a type of dialogue and presence.

‘There are other things art can do. It can imagine the unimaginable.’

Parker, Cornelia. "Apocalypse Now." in: The Guardian. February 12, 2008.

Parker, Cornelia. Hanging Fire Suspected Arson, 1999. Charcoal, wire, pins, nails. 140 x 84 x 220 cm

Parker is famous for her site specific works and has exhibited all around Europe. She is considered to be a member of the successful women artists who adapted ‘male strategies for success’(70). With this stereotype condition, she is also considered to be a major player in the feminist art movement due to her recognized participation in the male dominant scene. Though the artist bluntly admits that she herself does not create with the conscious objective of feminization but with determination for creativity which happens to be produced by a woman (A Strange Alchemy: Cornelia Parker: Interviewed by Lisa Tickner). According to her interview with Lisa Tickner, Parker is not a personally identified as a feminist and has a tendency to dislike being placed under the umbrella (183). Though she admits that her work is obviously’made by a woman, when you look at the form and sensibility of it'(183) but the artists believes to be consciously and dominantly hers.

Parker, Cornelia. Breathless. 2001. Musical instruments acquired from old establishments, squashed by another age-old institution, Tower Bridge and now suspended on stainless steel wire

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Manipulating Urban objects: Robbie Rowlands

Robbie Rowlands, an Australian, is emerging as an artist of unusual talent that alters large scale works of the urban milieu with a twist of humor and creativity. Suddenly floor boards of interior spaces emerge from a flat surface into spirals that twist and turn from a random source into an arbitrary form. Wall surfaces begin to transform revealing their interior structure. The wall is no longer a surface but a layering of materials that are acknowledge through the splitting of the flush. Pianos emerge from musical structures into a series of buttons, panels, and keys. Art of materiality of the daily, the mundane, that blurs the lines between natural urban environments and the fabricated creations formed by them. Rowland art is creative because it reminds the viewer of the structures that make up the urban life and braking up the monotony of the normal, the habitually visual.

'Using repetitious and precise cuts, artist Robbie Rowlands manipulates objects and environments. They are monumental manipulations and demand your attention the moment you see them. He installs his work in abandoned homes, school yards, and gymnasiums,using elements from the space to create his sculptures. Doing so gives the place or object a mind of its own. The walls breathe and the floor is alive.' (Sara Barnes).

Bibliography:

1. ‘A Strange Alchemy: Cornelia Parker: Interviewed by Lisa Tickner’ in Difference and Excess in Contemporary Art: the Visibility of of Women’s Practice’ Ed. Gil Perry (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004)
2. Barnes, Sara. ‘Robbie Rowlands’ Sculptures Cut Up Pianos, Walls, And More’ in Beautiful Decay (online). Nov. 12, 2013. http://beautifuldecay.com/2013/11/12/robbie-rowlands-sculptures-cut-pianos-walls/ [last visited: 24/12/2013, 11:36]
3. Cole, Ina. ‘Suspending Frictions: A Conversation with Cornelia Parker’ in Sculpture: June 2009, vol 28, no. 5 http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag09/june_09/parker/parker.shtml [last visited: 24/12/2013, 11:36]
4. ‘Daros Latinamerica Collection'  in e-Flux (online).
5. http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/wifredo-diaz-valdezs-construir-desconstruyendo/ [last visited: 24/12/2013, 11:36]
6. ‘New Feminist Art Criticism’ Ed. Katy Deepwell (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995). Pp. 1-74
7. Rowlands, Robbie. ‘Profile’ in Robbie Rowlands (online). http://www.robbierowlands.com.au/artist-profile.php [last visited: 24/12/2013, 11:36]
8. ‘Robbie Rowlands’ in Wikipedia (online). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Rowlands [last visited: 24/12/2013, 11:36]
9. Valentini, Marinel. ‘Sculpting the ‘Soul’ of Objects: Wifredo Díaz Valdéz at the Biennale’ in the Culture Trip (online).
10. http://theculturetrip.com/south-america/uruguay/articles/sculpting-the-soul-of-objects-wifredo-d-az-vald-z-at-the-venice-biennale/ [last visited: 24/12/2013, 11:36]
11. Voynovskaya, Nastia. ‘Robbie Rowlands Manipulates Space with Environmental Installations’ in Hi Fructose: The New Contemporary Art Magazine (online). Nov. 12, 2013
12. ‘http://hifructose.com/2013/11/12/robbie-rowlands-manipulates-space-with-environmental-installations/ [last visited: 24/12/2013, 11:36]