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| Alexis Esquivel Curriculum Vitae The Threshold: a proposal The Threshold: a Gallery |
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PROPOSED ONE-PERSON SHOW: "THE THRESHOLD"
Artist: Alexis Esquivel, 2000.
From outside, uneasy souls observe the threshold. Inside, anxious souls stand watch. Only the damned side penetrates the door. Only the damned side challenges the threshold.
The exhibit consists of three installations:
THE THRESHOLD, 1990-2000, consists of a large
quantity of white disposable plastic plates in which crecidos de Maíz
(grains of corn) have been planted. They are spread about the floor of the selected space so as to form, in
perspective, a carpet of plates of maíz crecido (corn shoots), at the far end of which there is
a TV monitor on the floor as well. The monitor is connected to a video camera aimed at the
feet of visitors to the exhibit, who, when they pass through the threshold, invited by the
circumstances, crush the religious offerings under their feet.
TRYING TO SMILE WITH BUBBLES IN YOUR MOUTH,
2000, is a wooden construction in the form of a miniature house, scaled to the size of its
supposed inhabitant, but lying on its side on the floor so that it more resembles a tomb.
The single window allows us to see, on a small television screen, the soap-filled mouth of
the inhabitant of the house lying on its side. From this position of confinement, the
inhabitant is blowing bubbles and attempting to smile while doing so.
OBSESSED WITH GOING BACK, 1999-2000. An old-fashioned wooden
shoe last, the memory/memento of those who walked before, is destroyed in the present by a
shoemaker with the knife that is the tool of his trade. While an omniscient camera films
this moment, someone meticulously collects the slivers of wood and places them in a glass
shoe, a woman’s dress shoe which rests upon the monitor displaying the image
previously recorded. The monitor serves as lamp and as pedestal in the shadowy site in
which all this occurs; its glow is reflected in the surfaces of the glass shoe which
sometimes appears to give off its own light.
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