THE EMBASSIES
Conceptually, "embassies" would be received and recognized by the appointed authorities which, in return would send an equivalent "embassy" to the corresponding country. Historically, these embassies are a series of mutually accorded privileges and commonly subscribed rituals accentuated by a succession of icons, symbols, emblems and other paraphernalia that, with a certain artificiality, if not altogether a doubtful authority, are created for the specific purpose of lending credibility to the events and persons involved.
No doubt it is a fragile credibility that if taken out of context would risk being mistaken for a farce. Indeed the essence of humor.
The following collection of exhibitions collectively comprise An Embassy Without A Country, and are now being reimagined in a new format. In honor of the late artist Sergio Duran, this reinterpretation is formatted as a book titled “A Book for An Embassy Without A Country.”
The Embassies describe identity as the area in our lives that defines us and yet remains elusively disguised from ourselves.
Not unlike personality and behavioral traits themselves, these installations are site specific and adopt characteristics that comment on the peculiarities of a distinct site. In doing so, the Embassies address specific audiences in language appropriate to their given location in space and time.
These installations question the smug state of contemporary art in exhibits that find comfort in the opportunistic, posh security of unchallenged groupings and definitions; "French Art Today", "Brazilian Artist" or the so called "Hispanic Art".
As messages sent from another place or time, the Embassies become displaced portraitures of something that they are not. As representations, their objective is simply to communicate.
While sometimes allegorical references can be drawn, the work alludes to the contradictions in the construct of contemporary identity.
Throughout the work a series of characters emerge, among these the Quixotic persona of a questionably sane if not at least partially Schizophrenic Ambassador Solo, who can be identified as the ambassador when he presents himself in full gala. Otherwise, often seen in the rags of a "closhard" and to his bewilderment, he is unrecognized and even rejected by the entrenched establishment.