Beaufort 10: Frío Estudio del Desastre, 2005

Los Carpinteros - Havana & Madrid, Cuba & Spain

Installation

Frío Estudio del Desastre (Frozen Study of a Disaster) plays on the uncanny representation of space as a disembodied picture of reality by presenting what appears to be a three-dimensional reconstruction of a photographic image of an exploding wall. Shattered fragments from a cinder block wall suspend in the air, while a gaping hole in the wall indicates the point of impact of the blast responsible for this domestic ground zero. Visitors encounter this eerie scene as a three-dimensional representation, a forensic image from which we may reconstruct the forces unleashed by the detonation.

Representing architectural vulnerability, this piece calls to mind pictures of the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2011, an event experienced around the world through its depictions in the media. Yet for all its evocation of a mortal disaster, the installation conspicuously lacks traces of human inhabitants; the space it presents is devoid of history, a frozen temporal vacuum. It hints at the way that our photographically conditioned perception limits our experience, not only of space, but also of time. “With the advent of modernity, time has vanished from social space,” historian Henri Lefebvre observed in “The Production of Space” (1974).

The Havana-based collective Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters) consist of Marco Antonio Castillo Valdes and Dagoberto Rodríguez Sánchez. Interested in the intersection between art and society, the group merges architecture, design, and sculpture in unexpected and often humorous ways. The works of Los Carpinteros are part of the collections of major museums in the United States, Europe and Latin America and they have been the subject of solo exhibitions globally. 

Learn More

www.tba21.org/collection/artist/573/artwork/464

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Exterior of Westin Harbour Castle

1 Harbour Square

This project is outdoors.