From a distance the panels by New York-based multimedia artist, performer and musician Raúl de Nieves installed in the Lower Level Galleries at the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, look like proper stained-glass windows.
Yet, when you get closer and the magic unravels, you realize this is all an illusion: the panels forming his installation entitled "A window to see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder…" (through August 25, 2024), are indeed only faux stained-glass windows made using everyday materials such as acetate and tape.
In a way, the technique calls to mind the ingenious sets and costumes in Carmelo Bene's Salome, originally created employing 3M's Scotchlite colored adhesive tape cut into squares, triangles and rectangles. The trick is more or less the same in this case.
With their ancient sea-gods, demons, human-animal hybrids, mythical beasts, skeletons, knights, swords, angels and demons in vibrant shades, the faux window panels transform the museum's largest gallery space into a kaleidoscopic container of colored light.
Best admired on a sunny day, the faux stained-glass translucent panels beneath each of the three skylight bays that span the gallery, are inspired by a poem by de Nieves wrapping the gallery walls (each stanza of the poem corresponds to one of the twenty-one window panels).
In Raúl de Nieves's practice, Mexican craft, Catholicism, the Tarot, the canon of European art, drag performance, queer and gender identity and punk music combine, serving as subtle references to the concepts of death, transformation, and rebirth.
At the Henry, de Nieves also included three beaded sculptures – "Celebration (mother)," "The Gift," and "The Deaths of Everyday." "Celebration (mother)" consists in a table covered with beads and with a wide range of other materials, including a lipstick, an empty can of soda, coffee cups and a broken iPhone. You can spot the silhouette of a human figure almost mummified or maybe fossilised among these modern relics of our times.
The figures "The Deaths of Everyday," and "The Gift" are almost god-like entities, disturbing yet glorious, evoking rituals and celebrations.
The artist usually creates densely textured sculptures covered in beads and textile elements and, quite often, the tactile nature of the sculptures may prove too tempting for children (and for adults as well…) who may want to explore it through touch. But the Henry came up with a thoughtful solution (that may be adopted also by other museums/galleries and for other types of work): Tupperware boxes filled with beads and fragments that fell off the pieces during installation and that children can play with.
There's also another chance to get immersed in Raúl de Nieves' colourful world at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA). Visitors entering from the East Lobby will be welcomed by the Mexican-American artist's installation "And imagine you are here" (on view through May 4, 2025).
The museum's second Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Biennial Commission, this is a joyful installation, created through accumulation and adornment, and exploring the themes of beauty, wonder, power and metamorphosis in the natural world.
The works included in this section of the museum reflect de Nieves' interest in connecting with audiences through universally accessible themes: at the heart of the installation there is "No Need For Vistas We Are Seen" (2023), a 27-pane faux stained-glass window that features an image of a Crested Caracara falcon that visited the artist in a dream, alongside a jumble of cicadas and Monarch butterflies whose migratory patterns move fluidly between the United States and Mexico.
"A Beautiful Nightmare" (2023), consists instead in a colorful chandelier featuring a beaded organism suspended and waiting within a cocoon, while a swarm of 999 clear resin flies containing colorful beads hovers on the walls pointing at the beauty of nature, but also retaining a disturbing twist as they also contain strands of the artist's hair.
Beaded and feathered flamboyant hybrid human/creature figures are placed throughout the first floor of the lobby, inviting visitors to sit and engage with them on colorful benches and contemplate through the amalgamation of masses of colored beads and pearls they are made of, the curious transformation they are going through.
The sculptures prompt contemplation on the exquisite, fragile, and at times mysterious and unsettling moments within the metamorphosis they represent, alluding to the continual changes taking place in our lives, bodies, and minds.
This installation marks the second presentation of the Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Biennial Commission, which was established in 2018 to allow international contemporary artists to create new works, cultivate aspiring curators from underrepresented backgrounds, and activate the BMA's two-floor East Lobby with publicly accessible art.
Image credits for this post
1 – 3. Raúl de Nieves, "A window to see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder…", the Lower Level Galleries at the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, USA
4 and 6. Installation view of Raúl de Nieves: and imagine you are here at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 2023. Photo by Mitro Hood.
5. Raúl de Nieves
No Need For Vistas We Are Seen, 2023
Glue, paper, tape, acetate, wood
27 panes, 120.65 x 114.3 cm each
7. Raúl de Nieves
The Beautiful Nightmare, 2023
Steel, fiberglass, resin, beads, fabrics, and sequins with LED lights
203.2 x 152.4 x 152.4 cm (approx.)
8. Raúl de Nieves
Untucked Parrotineal Pull Through The House Down Boots, OKKUURD!!! 2023
Fiberglass, epoxy foam, cement, resin, glue, beads
177.8 x 44.45 x 44.45 cm (approx.)
9. Raúl de Nieves
Frogmordial Genitals, A Sissy to Behold, RIBBIT! 2023
Fiberglass, epoxy foam, cement, resin, glue, beads
177.8 x 44.45 x 44.45 cm (approx.)
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