Bosco Sodi’s MURO (WALL)

A one-day public installation and performance in conjunction with USF Contemporary Art Museum’s current exhibition Visible Turn: Contemporary Artists Confront Political Invisibility.

Over some 10 hours on Thursday, January 24th, from 10am onwards at the USF Contemporary Art Museum artist Bosco Sodi’s Muro will be installed and then dismantled. Literally, at 20 feet long and 6 feet tall and composed of 1080 clay brick timbers, a wall be will be constructed. The public is invited to experience the wall’s construction and participate in the wall’s deconstruction and walk away with one of the timbers in a customized tote bag along with a certificate of authenticity. This will be the third iteration of Muro after similar installations in New York’s Washington Square Park in 2017 and in London’s South Bank in 2018.

Bosco Sodi’s Muro is one component of USFCAM’s Visible Turn: Contemporary Artists Confront Political Invisibility curated by Christian Viveros-Faune, who is the Museum’s Curator-at-large and the Kennedy Family Visiting Scholar at the USF School of Art and History. During his tenure at USF, Viveros-Faune has curated a series of challenging and thought-provoking exhibitions which concentrate on politically based artistic practice.  

In the sense that art can engage, be part of a society’s political dialogue, and bring to bear witness, this exhibition seeks to reveal the concealed and acknowledge that art has the potential to redress the imbalances of representation that are all-to-often defined by prevalent political and cultural hegemonies. Perhaps, it is in the nexus of the questions “How we see ourselves?” and then “What we don’t see?” that Viveros-Faune is elucidating issues which are important but have been marginalized and unnoticed.

With respect to Bosco Sodi’s Muro, a wall will be made visible, but only ever so briefly,  before it will be taken apart and distributed to this community. In this way, it speaks to what might be considered the precarious nature of visibility and also to our ownership of that “visibility” or specifically, the lack thereof. The timbers are handcrafted in the artist’s studio in  Mexico by craftsmen, many of whom have had the experience of being migrant workers in the United States of America. Without a doubt, there is a poignant irony attached in using a material made by a specific constituency to build a wall which by implication can be potentially seen as a barrier to that exact same constituency.

In this case, to read a wall as a barrier can be interpreted as to what we want to keep out and make invisible: what we want to exclude. Importantly, a wall determined by such factors directly reflects back upon ourselves. It refers to our insecurities as to what we may fear and out of such emotions the hubris of a wall is made explicit. Superiority, control, authority, and making invisible the visible are all provocatively questioned by Sodi’s Muro. That there is also a present controversy about what is largely considered a futile wall only adds further power to this.

As an installation, questions are raised through the process of building a wall as to how we might isolate, insulate and conceal. The response to dismantle and so diminish such exclusionary tendencies presents the possibilities of a politically-based art practice. Engagement and participation are critical factors in an open and free society and Viveros-Faune has cogently and powerfully asserted through this exhibition and installation that art has a significant role to play in understanding ourselves as political beings: that art, in such instances, does have a peculiar and particular power to convey.

Art Thursday, January 24, 2019
Bosco Sodi, Muro
Public installation and performance.
USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL

10am-3pm: Viewing of Muro installation
3-8pm: Dismantling of Muro by the public
6-8pm: Public Reception; remarks by Bosco Sodi at 6:30pm
All events are free and open to the public.

The Stanton Storer Embrace the Arts Foundation is the major supporter of The Visible Turn: Contemporary Artists Confront Political Invisibility. Bosco Sodi, Muro is sponsored by The Gobioff Foundation and USF World.

For additional information visit about this event or the exhibtion visit: www.usfcam.usf.edu

Photography credit: Bosco Sodi, Muro. Installation view in Washington Square Park, New York. September 2017. Photo: Diego Flores and Chris Stach. Courtesy of USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL.