Espejos de Agua
Los Carpinteros
Los Carpinteros
Espejos de Agua, 2001
Installation with six wooden tables, epoxy resin, water, flex lamps
86 x 183 x 106.7 cm (each table)
Overall dimensions variable
TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
Photo: Courtesy San Francisco Art Institute, 2008
Los Carpinteros
Espejos de Agua, 2001
Installation with six wooden tables, epoxy resin, water, flex lamps
86 x 183 x 106.7 cm (each table)
Overall dimensions variable
TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
Photo: Courtesy San Francisco Art Institute, 2008
- Date
- 2008
- Medium
- Installation with six wooden tables, epoxy resin, water, flex lamps
- Dimension
- 86 x 183 x 106.7 (each table) Overall dimensions variable
- Credit
TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
- This artwork is part of the donation and long-term loan from TBA21 to the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.
Details
Espejos de Agua (Water Mirrors) continues Los Carpinteros’ inventions of hybridized interior furnishings infused with new meaning. At first glance, the six wooden drafting tables—each with five black desk lamps—appear quite ordinary. Upon closer inspection one realizes that the lights are reflecting not on a piece of glass, but on a shallow pool of water, subverting the usual function of the table as a place to make drawings.
Each individual table alludes to the nature of the artistic process and becomes a visual pun about the difficulty and even impossibility of rendering, of “drawing” upon ideas and making them palpable. With the ubiquitous presence of water and the precarious, potentially unstable tables, one may also imagine the installation as a reference to Cuba—the constantly shifting conditions of the island and the artists who work there.