Colección Jumex: Everything Gets Lighter
Guest Curator: Lisa Phillips, Director of the New Museum, New York.
Everything Gets Lighter presents works by 67 artists whose work speaks to light and lightness as a response and antidote to the complexities of contemporary art.
The title of the exhibition is inspired by the 2002 poem Everyone Gets Lighter by the American artist John Giorno. The poem is a reflection on clarity and luminosity, and how being lighter can help in confronting life’s challenges.
This becomes a guiding thread throughout the exhibition to address physical and spiritual, political, social, and ecological issues, and how art can become a sustaining force for humanity in these unsettling times.
GALLERY 1
The work of five artists in this gallery present different effects of light and lightness that play with perception and transcendence.
The canvas Rear Projection by Tala Madini is typical of her humorous, cartoon-like depiction of men that make light of masculinity. The title is a play between a type of film projection from behind the screen and the ‘rear’. The image of a snake may also be understood as a word-game with ass and asp.
Charles Ray’s Moving Wire projects from the wall opposite the entrance. Barely perceptible, the fine wire moves in and out of the wall with a motor. Despite its slight appearance, the movement draws attention to the architecture and the wall itself is considered by the artist to be part of the sculpture. In early work, Ray used his body propped up against the wall or by furniture to create temporary sculptures. Moving Wire can be seen as a continuation of his idea of art as existing in time and space.
Nail Solo by Urs Fischer is an oversized nail whose shadow is part of the sculpture, molded from the same material as the object. Throughout his practice, Fischer plays with scale and materiality to create physical images rather than objects.
Any Obscuration of Light consists of a table on which a half-completed jigsaw puzzle sits. The final image is just discernable as a photography of a solar eclipse, featuring mainly black parts except of a halo. The relationship between games and shared experience is a common factor in Rirkrit Tiravanija’s practice that prioritizes social spaces over art objects.
James Turrell’s installation Spenta Mainyu from the Wedgework series is a meditative space in which one perceives a form made of pure colored light. Entering through a completely dark passage, it requires approximately 10 minutes for the eyes to adjust to the low light levels after which the details of this perceptual experience are truly visible. Turrell is interested in both the physical aspects of perception and the spiritual connotations of light, as suggested by the title which is taken from the Zorastrian belief as one of the stages towards enlightenment.
TERRACE
Two pieces on the terrace use neon lights and text.
Love Invents Us is a work by Ugo Rondinone that shares its name with a poem by John Giorno, his former partner. Written in illuminated letters with and arranged in an arch, it suggest a physical rainbow and connects this positive humanist statement to LGBTQ+ movement.
Primarily a photographer from the Boston School, who dedicated their work to documentary, Jack Pierson has an expanded practice that includes sculptural texts. NIGHT is spelled out in salvaged advertising and shop signs in this work that suggests as time and space outside the museum’s opening hours when the words are illuminated and visible.
GALLERY -1
The projection by Tacita Dean shows a setting sun over the ocean from the moment it touches the horizon until it disappears in real time. Titled The Green Ray the film attempts to capture a momentary phenomenon where the sun turns green for an instant before it vanishes from sight. This moment was said to be a good omen for sea-faring voyages and has been referenced throughout the history of cinema. The film is activated on demand by the public.
Jungle by Francis Alÿs is an installation of preparatory drawings and three canvases that show tropical forest scenes and two figures. Alÿs frequently shows not only finished work but documents of the process of observation and its transformation into art.
PUBLIC SPACES
In the museum lobby is a telephone that can be lifted and dialed to hear a poem by one of many poets. DIAL-A-POEM was a project developed by John Giorno as a means of distributing poetry to the home. He commissioned hundreds of poems which are provided at random when the receiver is lifted. A recent version Dial-a-Poem Mexico was produced by Fundación Casa Wabi and Giorno Poetry Systems with contributions by 30 Mexican poets. Both versions remain active by telephone and a billboard placed in the city announces the Mexican version to a wider public during the exhibition.
Though his work, Jorge Pardo explores the intersection between painting, design, sculpture and architecture. His piece Lamp #030100 is part of an edition that contains unique lamps as all of them has the same colors arranged differently.
An LED panel in the main elevator of the museum is the work Truisms by Jenny Holzer displaying statements on social justice and politics authored by the artist. These statements remain as pertinent as they did when the artist first wrote them.
In the plaza Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfall is an artificial cascade falling from a scaffold tower. Elliason is interested in the relationships between natural phenomena and cultural imagination. In this case, the mechanism of the waterfall is bare to see, yet still invokes a romantic experience and awe.
