Born in Mexico City in 1977 and currently working from NYC, Alejandro Almanza Pereda says that his work creates tension, ”Related to how we see risk and how we see danger, and the respect that we have for these.” [Interview]
Pereda creates precarious compositions using everyday objects and materials to create a sense of tension and impending danger, using our familiarity with them to heighten our measure of improbability. One critic even came up with the profound conclusion that it:
“Highlights human frailty…like the soft wind from an oscillating fan”
Wow. Really? Intellectual over-indulgence is an artistic prerogative. Probably heightened by the Mexican’s national shame [hilarious?]. But Alejandro needn’t worry so. While some of the more inert structures might ‘create tension’, others suggest freedom. And these interest me the most.
Assembled with fluorescent light tubes and clamps, the sculptures imitate the modular makeup of scaffolding (as above). His structural use of lighting components is poetic, and replacing the dull metal with glowing tubes is not only mesmerizing, but it seems so logical (although no one else saw it coming) as they share similar dimensions. And the compositions maintain the same material familiarity that we can identify with, flaunting any 'nu'-age media.
I’m very jealous, and intend to make my own scaffold lamp.
