Caseros Prison Demolition Project
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Seth Wulsin has used the ex-Caseros Prison, in Buenos Aires, and its demolition as the raw materials for his latest piece, called The Caseros Prison Demolition Project, also known as 16 Tons and Aparecidos.
Breaking out certain windows, the artist has created faces in each of the 48 outer grids on the building. The windows that remain reflect the light of the sky, the sun and the moon producing human faces from certain angles. The faces appear and disappear according to the precise position of the viewer as well. “You have to move," says Wulsi. "It's a kind of active perception, many people may pass there and never notice anything." The viewing angles change throughout the year as the sun's elevation in the sky changes. The cycle of appearance and disappearance is underscored by the demolition process, which consists in the removal of the building from the top down, floor by floor. The demolition is expected to last until March of 2007. New York film maker Kellen Quinn is making a documentary on the piece. Buenos Aires film maker Andres La Penna is filming the entire demolition of the building in collaboration with Wulsin. |
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I think it's clear based on the way the piece operates that the project really includes the whole demolition itself, and beyond the demolition, the history of the place. Wulsin is stepping beyond Duchamps and Smithson and working with the very fabric of reality to create something who's reality is magnified by the artistic focus that activates it.