The Modern Church

A wall of square windows, floor to ceiling, in a steel frame. The windows are stacked seven up and 8 across, each one approximately 2 feet by 2 feet. The steel beams run horizontally and are about five inches wide. Cut steel beams connect the windows vertically. On the right-most side, the third window from the top is a yellow square, and the one directly below this is a red square. Otherwise, all of the windows are clear, clean glass. That I can see, only two of the glass windows have imperfections--smudges, scratches, or paint, I'm not sure. The room's ceiling is an arc, and this box of windows reaches the top of the arc. I am looking into the other half of the room (from my perspective the second half), which I cannot reach. On the opposite wall, there is a window and I can see a neighboring building in it--this window is part of the art too. Because the art is here, and I am here, and the building is here.

In front of the wall of windows is an ancient and immense anchor. Just by looking at its rust, I can feel how heavy it is. I could not lift it if I were wonderwoman. No one could. It is holding me here in the room and also reminds me of an anchor inside myself. It would take magic to lift it. And it is my idea that magic is possible, only very difficult. The anchor is attached to the ceiling via a thick rope, old and frayed, the width of my four fingers held together, and the rope is attached to a large ring in the ceiling. From the ring, the rope draws a straight line to the floor where it is not coiled neatly but lies in a mess. It skims the curve of the anchor on its way to the floor--perhpas a few fibers touch but not the whole rope. The anchor is attached to the floor by its weight and it is nearly the length of five windows.

To me, now, this is about travel. There are a great many windows in front of me, and windows are openings into other worlds, views, places of magic. The windows are also magic, and you know this by looking at them because they are solid but they let me through. And yet, I cannot go through because I am on the side with the anchor--this is my home, or anything in my mind that is holding me. The anchor is old, it is immense; the rope that holds the anchor is frayed.

The red window and the yellow window are not clear. I cannot see through them as I can see through the other windows, but this does not make them non-windows. The steel frames of these squares still hold glass. These colored windows are about limits--perhaps my own limits, or limits that precede me. And they could be places where I might see my reflection, or pretend to, or desire it. And it could be that I am seeking my reflection because I am seeking something familiar--some semblance of my home--or maybe I am seeking what I hope to make familiar and understand more thoroughly (i.e. myself, who I was, or am becoming). Or, the colored windows are wild cards, risks I take. Windows I go through without knowing what is on the otherside beforehand.

And the frame is steel. Like with the anchor, I feel an immense strength from it, but also its ability to hold me back or down. If it were not there, I could go through the windows (either by magic or by smashing the glass with the anchor or my boot). The steel frame is there to remind me I am looking at a wall--the steel reinforces the windows, which are opportunities; it also holds those opportunities in place.



*Reflections at MADRE, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina, Napoli

Jannis Kounellis, Untitled (2005).