A Presence Never Forgotten

review by Mark Bedetti

3/4/17

Everyone’s A Critic

            Tattered stainless steal chairs litter the floor of an open room on the third level of the Harvard Art Museums. This is just one of the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo’s pieces held in the museum in Boston, MA. Salcedo’s work is made to address political violence through sculptures and installations. Influenced by her home of Bogotá, Colombia, she uses her work as an outlet to help display the violence she witnesses daily. Salcedo uses furniture and everyday industrial materials such as cement, wood, steel, and thread. Recently, she has focused on creating art using delicate materials to show “the trace of the absent body” according to her exhibit description.

           

One of the biggest and most intriguing installations in the exhibit was her installation of stainless steel chairs. Each chair has been carved into by hand to show the most detail possible. The scars, chips, and gouges from daily use represents the presence of the bodies of civil conflict who may have used to sit in these very seats. The metal look shows signs of an unforgiving surface showing torment and the absence of a backrest an uncomfortable seat for those who are forced to sit in it. Many of the chairs were mended together into one showing that it was a common struggle between multiple souls rather than just an occasional personal struggle. Having a piece on such a large scale shows how big and reoccurring of a problem it was representing.

            Doris Salcedo uses art to show what is truly happening in the world rather than acting as if violence is not present.