Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

  • Home
  • Riot Material Magazine
    • About RM / Subscribe
    • Entering The Mind
      • 3-Part Podcast
    • Contributors
    • Categories >
      • Art
      • Artist
      • Books
      • Thought
      • Film
      • Cinema Disordinaire
      • Riot Sounds
      • Records
      • Jazz
      • Interview
      • More   >
        • Architecture
        • Image
        • The Line
        • The New Word
        • That Evening Sun
        • The Natural World
        • Video
    • Contact
    • Masthead
  • Art
    • Art Reviews
  • Books
    • Book Reviews
  • Film
    • Film Reviews
  • Records
    • Jazz Reviews
    • All Reviews
  • Riot Sounds
  • Cinema Disordinaire
    • Riot Cinema

The Cross-Bordered DeLIMITations Bridges An Era’s Divide

March 25, 2018 By Nancy Kay Turner Leave a Comment

at Museo De La Artes, Guadalajara, Mexico
Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner

“Delimitation means the act or process of fixing limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country or province having a legislative body”

A timely and compelling installation at Museo De La Artes, Guadalajara, Mexico, entitled DeLIMITations by Mexican artist Marcus Ramirez ERRE and American artist David Taylor, examines and documents through stills, a documentary film, large-scale graphics, a solid-steel obelisk and historical research presented as wall text, the original border between the United States and Mexico as determined by the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1821. Their historical, political and cultural piece sets about to establish a border that was never physically marked by placing 47 steel obelisks along the 2400 mile border that never was. The treaty was rescinded 27 years later, after the Mexican-American War of 1846-8, when Mexico ceded 55% of its land to the United States in a land grab disguised as a war. Ulysses S. Grant was then a young lieutenant who fought in the war, and later admitted (and is quoted here in the exhibition) “I do not think there was ever a more wicked war…I thought so at the time…only I had not the moral courage to resign.”

This narrative installation, originally commissioned for the SITElines inaugural Biennial in Sante Fe, New Mexico, for their Unsettled Landscape exhibit, is exceptional in its logical, dispassionate tone and in the choice of materials used to both inform and educate the viewer. Amidst the current highly provocative border discussions, it is extremely powerful and emotional to see the huge swath of the United States that was taken from Mexico.


As part of the information on the wall texts, Marcos Ramirez (known as ERRE) and David Taylor lay out what equipment they would need: 1. Purchase a used sprinter van (or borrow one from Mercedes-Benz), 2. Fabricate parts for 47 obelisks (20 gage (sic) galvanized steel), 3. Design the project visual identity (t-shirts, van graphics, monument graphics). 4. Social Media 5. Plot the project route in Google Earth and determine monument locations. The laconic list goes on to include among other things, buy camping supplies, groceries, pack van and lastly #12 to fundraise. This to-do list makes the project seem very accessible, humble even and personal.

The project is very personal for ERRE who lives in Tijuana, Mexico. In an interview, ERRE talked about this original 1821 border as a “scar that never heals” and he shared his hope that this project will make that scar visible. It took one year to research and plan the project, and then one month to fundraise. It took another month to construct the parts for the 47 hollow obelisks (many of them had to be put together during the month-long marathon road trip) that would be placed in predetermined locations on the “border” that had existed only on paper.


Each sculpture is numbered and has a QR code on it, which connects to their project blog. ERRE likes to drive and so he was the driver while Taylor navigated through GPS. The artists state “Each of the obelisks we place bears the coordinates that indicate our intended survey points but circumstances and our own impulse compel us to adapt. So far, the markers have ended up very close to our predetermined locations and the variance is under one-hundredth of a minute (of latitude and longitude).”

A large framed graphic (probably 7 feet high by 5 feet wide) lists what would have been “border” towns had the terms of the original treaty been kept, and it contains some surprises. It includes such far-flung towns as Brookings, Oregon; Jackpot, Nevada; Medicine Bow, Wyoming; Puebla, Colorado; Dodge City, Kansas; Arthur City, Texas; Waurika, Oklahoma, and even Texarkana on the Texas and Arkansas border, among many others. All of this information is displayed with colorful, large-scale images — some of maps, some quotes, some just the section of ceded territory cut out and mounted on the wall. The cumulative effect of all this evidence is astonishing and overwhelming.

However, the most poignant part of this installation is the wall with color prints of each single obelisk situated usually in a somewhat uninhabited place. These are all relentlessly horizontal emphasizing the grand scale of this enormous country. The small space in the back of the gallery is where the wonderful thirty-seven minute documentary by Jose Inerzia is screened continuously. Each frame of the video is nearly like a still as the camera is often stationary allowing the viewer to focus on the endless prairie or limitless sky.


The video opens with a close-up on the obelisks being constructed as the #1 obelisk is situated in Brookings, Oregon along a cold, wet empty beach. This unsettling and lonely image sets the tone for the rest of the video. As the artists install the obelisks, they occasionally encounter either a curious onlooker or the owner of the property that they are going to install a marker on. The interviews with these folks are heard as voice-overs and also seen as text, like a subtitle on the bottom of the picture. One of my favorite shots in the film catches a herd of cows in the distance seemingly very tiny, near the bottom of the frame, casually walking towards the viewer. Behind them is a series of endless windmills and all is dwarfed by the big, clear endless sky. It’s so quiet and reflective. One can almost hear the wind.

In Medicine Bow, Wyoming, the voice over is the artists explaining the 1821 treaty to a bystander who then wistfully and plaintively complains that these small, rural towns (such as the one that is seen on the screen) are dwindling and becoming ghost towns. Another man, who is married to a “one-quarter” Pueblo Native American woman. talks about how land is cheap out there and it is cheap to live. Two voices and two different views expressed. The film is quite even-handed this way and never preachy.


The next frame shows the artists sleeping outside their van, in sleeping bags, on cots. Absolutely no one is nearby. The sense of desolation is palpable. At Dodge City, Kansas, the voiceover in Spanish is the story of a woman who came to America to play futbol (soccer) and met her husband. She wants to go back and visit her family but is afraid she won’t be allowed to return. While we are hearing this, we are seeing a lovely image of a pretty blonde woman (presumably the speaker) in a white wedding dress down by the river. The juxtaposition of imagery is both striking and memorable.

Near Texarkana, Texas the camera pans the graffiti (including the initials “KKK”) covering the underpass of a road while the female being interviewed talks about America as a nation of immigrants. She says that as a veteran she is now sorry that she voted for the people now in office who are anti-immigrant. Next up is a Dreamer, who wishes for immigration reform for the millions of migrants and hopes that they would then be treated better. The next person we hear feels that the United States culture is dissolving. He is troubled by the many languages spoken in the United States and uses the analogy of a football team. How would they play together if everyone spoke a different language? He speaks of other empires that declined like the Romans and the Greeks. All this as monument #42 is being installed onscreen. The work goes on. We see Martinez make a wooden base into which the obelisk goes. Then he takes out his level and makes sure that it is correctly installed.

These interviews, freely given, only amplify the current political dislocation. The border turns out to be metaphoric as well as literal — a divide that as a nation we can’t seem to cross. DeLIMITations is the sort of exquisite exhibition that more than achieves its goals to educate, to give voice to people on all sides of the debate, to illuminate events in the past that suddenly are more than contemporary, to correct a historical wrong and most of all to make the viewer ponder the very nature of borders and delimitations. Bravo.

[paypal_donation_button]

~

Nancy Kay Turner is Los Angeles Art Critic for Riot Material magazine. Ms. Turner is an artist, arts writer and educator who has written for ARTWEEK, ARTSCENE and Visions Magazine. She fled NewYork for the sun and fun of California and has never looked back.

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

riot sounds

Into the Triangular Warp, Without Tether

New from Mandy, Indiana
“Injury Detail”

on Fire Talk Records

The Line

Louise Bourgeois: What Is The Shape of This Problem?

at University of Southern California, Fisher Museum of Art. (through 3 December 3, 2022) Reviewed by Margaret Lazzari Louise Bourgeois is widely recognized for her sculptures and installations, but Louise Bourgeois: What is The Shape of This Problem is a wonderful opportunity to immerse yourself in her perhaps-lesser-known prints, fabric work and writings. This exhibit contains over […]

Moonage Daydream Conveys More Myth Than Man

Moonage Daydream Dir. Brett Morgan Reviewed by Nicholas Goldwin As one of the greatest shapeshifters in the expansive history of rock music, it seems only fitting that the documentary with David Bowie as its subject never seems content to express the trials, tribulations and artistic triumphs of Bowie in any one fixed way. This is […]

The Artful Construction of The ‘I’

by Merve Emre NYR The essay form…bears some responsibility for the fact that bad essays tell stories about people instead of elucidating the matter at hand. —Theodor Adorno The personal essay is a genre that is difficult to define but easy to denounce. The offending element is rarely the essay as a form, but its […]

Carnación di Rocío Molina, at Riot Material Magazine.

On Binding: Notes from Venice

Bienalle Arte and Bienalle Danza, Venice 2022 By Allyn Aglaïa Chest bound, lips sealed, I walked through Venice alone, quiet, and: thought about narratives that bind us to erotic binds

Mohammad Barrangi's Guardians of Eden (Dreamscape #8), at Riot Material magazine.

Transcendence Beyond Erasure in Mohammad Barrangi’s Dreamscape

at Advocartsy, Los Angeles (thru 5 November 2022) Reviewed by Christopher Ian Lutz Fantasy requires a symbolic vehicle to transport a character from the real world into the imaginary realm, where the laws of reality are subverted or obscured to justify an otherwise absurd event. The artist might depict the vehicle as a real object […]

Idris Khan's The Pattern of Landscape at Sean Kelly Gallery, Los Angeles. An interview with Idris is at Riot Material magazine.

An Interview with Idris Khan

The Pattern of Landscape, at Sean Kelly, Los Angeles (through 5 November 2022) by Ricky Amadour Opening on the corner of Highland and De Longpre Avenues in the heart of Hollywood, Idris Khan’s The Pattern of Landscape is the inaugural exhibition at Sean Kelly, Los Angeles. Khan investigates color theory, text, and musical concepts through […]

Soul Crash: Our Slow, Inexorable Release Into the Metaverse

by Sue Halpern The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything by Matthew Ball Liveright 352pp., $18.89 NYR In October 2021, when Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would now be called Meta and its business interests would be pivoting to the metaverse, there was almost universal confusion: most observers had no idea what he was […]

green tara

Pointing the Staff at the Old Man

A wisdom transmission by Samaneri Jayasāra Excerpted from —  Advice from the Lotus Born  from the chapter “Pointing the Staff at the Old Man” Translated by Eric Pema Kunsang Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 184pp., $21.95 . .

Margaret Lazzari’s "Shimmer." From the exhibition "Breathing Space."

Margaret Lazzari’s Luminous Breathing Space

at George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles (through 8 October 2022) Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner “Things are not what they seem: nor are they otherwise.” –Buddha Margaret Lazzari’s luminous solo exhibition of paintings, entitled Breathing Space, were painted during the pandemic, and the exhibition title is indeed significant. It’s defined as a respite, a hiatus, or an […]

A Look Back on an Iconoclast: Art Critic Dave Hickey

by Jarrett Earnest Far From Respectable: Dave Hickey and His Art by Daniel Oppenheimer University of Texas Press, 141 pp., $24.95 The Invisible Dragon: Essays on Beauty, Revised and Expanded by Dave Hickey University of Chicago Press, 123 pp., $15.00 (paper) Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy by Dave Hickey Art Issues Press, 215 […]

From Phil Tippet's Mad God, reviewed at Riot Material magazine.

Nihilism Births Its Own Interminable Hell

Mad God Dir. Phil Tippett Reviewed by Nicholas Goldwin Technically astonishing and immersive to a fault, director Phil Tippett successfully demonstrates that thirty years of relentless dedication to your craft can lead to cinematic innovations even his old stomping grounds – the sets of Star Wars and Jurassic Park – have yet to catch up. […]

Eve Wood, "Ostrich Pretending To Be A Francis Bacon Painting." At Riot Material.

An Interview with Artist Eve Wood

Eve Wood: Hanging in There to Hang On at Track 16 Gallery, Los Angeles (opening reception: Saturday, September 10, 7-10pm) by Julie Adler I met Eve Wood at Holly Matter, an art gallery on Heliotrope in East Hollywood, 22 years ago now. I recall she got up and read some of her poems. Incisive, cutting, […]

John Lurie’s The History of Bones

Reviewed by Cintra Wilson The History of Bones: A Memoir by John Lurie Random House, 435 pp., $28.00 NYRB It was 1989 when I saw John Lurie on TV in a late-night advertisement for the new Lounge Lizards album, Voice of Chunk, which was “not available in stores” and selling exclusively through an 800 number. Operators were standing […]

Marlene Dumas, "Losing (Her Meaning)," 1988. At Riot Material magazine.

Marlene Dumas’ Masks of Inborn Gods

open-end, at Palazzo Grassi, Venice (through 8 January 2023) Reviewed by Arabella Hutter von Arx Four relatively small artworks greet the visitor in the first room of the Marlene Dumas exhibit, open-end, at Palazzo Grassi. D-rection shows a young man contemplating his rather large and purple erection. A bluish white face and a brown face unite […]

Clarice Lispector

Baffling the Sphinx: The Enigmatic World of Clarice Lispector

Reviewed by John Biscello Água Viva by Clarice Lispector New Directions Publishing 88pp., $14.95 Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas by Clarice Lispector New Directions Publishing 864pp., $29.95 The word is my fourth dimension –Clarice Lispector And on the eighth and endless day, where the bottomless hallelujah meets Ouroboros, God created Clarice Lispector. Maybe. […]

Donna Ferrato "Diamond, Minneapolis, MN 1987." At Riot Material magazine

Donna Ferrato’s Magnificent Holy

at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, NYC (through July 29 2022) Reviewed by Phoebe Hoban The small scale of Donna Ferrato’s snapshot-like black-and-white photographs belies their personal and political power. Whether they document the medical sinks and shelves in a now-shuttered Texas abortion clinic, or hone in on the badly bruised face of a domestic violence […]

Darcilio Lima Unknown Lithograph, 1972. At Riot Material magazine.

Magia Protetora: The Art of Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos and Darcilio Lima

at the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick, Cleveland OH (through 30 September 2022) Curated by Stephen Romano Gallery Reviewed by Christopher Ian Lutz The extension of a lineage occurs not merely by the repetition of form, but by the intersection of conservation and revolution. Transformation is fundamental to preserving the essence of a given tradition’s rituals and […]

Eve Wood's A Cadence for Redemption, written in the fictive voice of Abraham Lincoln, is excerpted at Riot Material magazine.

Songs For Our Higher Selves

A Cadence for Redemption: Conversations With Abraham Lincoln by Eve Wood Del Sol Press, 46pp., $5.99 Employing the fictive voice of a former president, Eve Wood shifts the perspective on the happenings of our times – where all indicators point to the slow, inexorable collapse of the American Experiment – to the one man who […]

RIOT MATERIAL
art. word. thought.