Heaven is Being a Memory to Others Dario Robleto: Alloy of Love

An Instinct Towards Life Only A Phontom Can Know, 2007-08
Photography by Adam L. Weintraub
Educator’s Guide with Self-Guided Materials For School Groups
Heaven is Being a Memory to Others
and
Dario Robleto: Alloy of Love
Heaven is Being a Memory to Others is cocurated by artist Dario Robleto and Robin Held, Frye Art Museum
chief curator and director of exhibitions and collections. Dario Robleto: Alloy of Love is curated by
Elizabeth Dunbar and organized by The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College
in collaboration withthe Frye Art Museum. The exhibition is coordinated for the Frye by Robin Held.
This self-guide was created by Deborah Sepulveda, Frye Art Museum manager of student
and teacher programs, Frye Art Museum and artist Gretchen Bennett.
FRYE ART MUSEUM
FRYE ART MUSEUM
www.fryemuseum.org
www.fryemuseum.org
25
SKETCHES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOR EDUCATORS
GETTING STARTED
1
ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS AND THE ARTIST
l HEAVEN IS BEING A MEMORY TO OTHERS
2
l DARIO ROBLETO: ALLOY OF LOVE
3
DID YOU KNOW?
4
THE CULTURE OF DJ SAMPLING AND MUSIC
AS A GUIDING PRINCIPLE IN DARIO’S WORK
5–6
LINER NOTES
7
ROBLETO’S USE OF MATERIALS
8
NOTES
9
ABOUT THE WORKS OF ART:
STOP 1
and
STOP 2
10–11
12–13
STOP 4
STOP 3
and
STOP 5
14–15
BEFORE COMING TO THE MUSEUM
16
BACK AT SCHOOL
17
ACTIVITY
18
END NOTES
19
FOR STUDENTS / GALLERY ACTIVITIES
20–23
NOTES
24
SKETCHES 25
1
24
NOTES
GETTING STARTED
This educator’s guide includes a variety of materials designed to
help you prepare your class for a visit to the exhibitions Heaven is
Being a Memory to Others and Dario Robleto: Alloy of Love.
The first section, titled “For Educators,” should be read before visiting
the Museum. The second section, “For Students,” can be printed out
to use in the museum. The goal of this guide is to challenge learners
to think critically about what they see and to engage them in the
process of discussing art. It is intended to facilitate students’ personal
discoveries about art and is aimed at strengthening the skills that
allow them to view art independently. The in-gallery activities should
be explored in groups, and are meant to encourage dialogue.
Dario Robleto takes the role of an artist DJ, mixing references and
combining objects to expand and refine history. This guide will explore
the importance of music, history, storytelling, materials, and writing in
his artwork. His process of sampling allows each viewer to have his or
her own personal response to his artwork.
While this guide focuses on a few works of art, students are
encouraged to spend time examining the entire exhibition.
We also encourage teachers and students to review Dario’s artwork
by visiting the following links:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070916/news_lz1a16sample.html
http://www.presentspace.com/presenttwo/presents/robleto/robletoessay.htm
http://www.damelioterras.com/exhibition.html?id=8
http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/past/robleto.php
http://www.interreview.org/RBonDR.html
2
23
ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS AND THE ARTIST
Discuss in a group:
HEAVEN IS BEING A MEMORY TO OTHERS
l How would you answer this question?
April 26–August 10, 2008
For the first time in its history, the Frye has devoted all of its galleries
to the work and ideas of a single artist: Heaven is Being a Memory to
STOP 6
Others, an exhibition conceived especially for the Frye by artist Dario
Take time to visit the exhibition,
Robleto, and Alloy of Love, a traveling 10-year survey of Robleto’s art.
Heaven is Being a Memory to Others.
A one-of-a-kind, site-specific installation, Heaven is Being a Memory
l What themes and issues in Robleto’s artwork are important to you?
to Others deepens Robleto’s ongoing exploration of our yearning for
immortality, as it might be seen from the perspective of lovers, artists,
soldiers, or art collectors. The exhibition—the culmination of Robleto’s
l How are the ideas explored in Alloy of Love similar to or different from
spring 2007 residency at the Frye—combines new sculptural works by
those explored in Heaven is Being a Memory to Others?
Robleto with more than twenty paintings he selected from the
Frye Collections.
While researching the Collections, Robleto became intrigued by how
few details exist about the life of the Museum’s cofounder, Emma Lamp
Frye. Her missing biographical details became a point of departure
for Heaven, with which Robleto imagines the roles Emma might have
BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE MUSEUM
l If you could ask the artist any question about his artwork,
what would you ask him?
played as lover, bride, wife, thwarted mother, music lover, art collector,
and civic benefactress. Aiming to “know the Frye Collections through
Emma’s eyes, through her history,” Robleto selected for the exhibition
psychologically charged portraits of heroes and socialites by Franz von
Lenbach; soulful images of women by Gabriel Cornelius Ritter von Max;
and sentimental depictions of children by Ludwig Zumbusch. Robleto’s
new sculptures, created especially for the exhibition, were inspired by
his research into the Collections.
l Pick an artwork in the galleries that you would like to explore further
and make a sketch below:
3
22
DARIO ROBLETO: ALLOY OF LOVE
STOP 5
Dario’s Shredded
Love Letters
1997
4 1/4 x 2 x 1/2 inches
Collection of Gregory Higgins,
Dallas, Texas
May 17–September 1, 2008
Alloy of Love chronicles a decade of work by San Antonio-based artist
Dario Robleto and includes pivotal examples of his sculptures and
collages. Robleto is well known for intricately hand-crafted objects
that reflect his passionate investigations into a wide range of subjects,
Discuss in a group:
including music, popular culture, science, philosophy, war,
l Do you think your love letters could cure another persons heartache?
and American history. The artist spins new narratives out of the vast
inventory of our past, utilizing such diverse and unusual materials
as melted and pulverized vinyl records, artifacts gleaned from battlefields, rare herbs and minerals, and even prehistoric fossils and
human bones. Inspired by DJ culture’s practice of mixing and
STOP 4
A Defeated Soldier Wishes to
Walk His Daughter Down the
Wedding Aisle
2004
21 x 20 x 80 inches
Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
purchased with funds provided by
Tina Petra, Ken Wong, and Gibson Dunn
Discuss in a group:
l What’s going on in this sculpture?
sampling, Robleto combines and refashions his materials into poetic
artworks that engage nostalgia and history.
Along the way, Robleto pays homage to many important historical
figures (such as singers Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin and the
Space Shuttle Columbia astronauts), as well as anonymous
individuals, including soldiers and widows who contributed to our
nation’s legacy of, and whose stories, resurrected through art,
reinforce the relevance of the past on the present, and to our future.
The resulting artworks are much more than just the sum of their
constituent parts or factual interpretations of particular events and
personalities. Rather, they are sincere and emotional meditations on
love, loss, spirituality, and ultimately, healing.
l What do you see that makes you say that?
Read Robleto’s liner notes (materials list) out loud.
l What feelings are raised by this sculpture?
l Would you carve your own leg to walk your daughter down the
wedding aisle?
4
21
DID YOU KNOW?
Dario relies on visitors to know many of the sound sources that his artwork refers to. He states: “There is a lot of sound in my exhibitions, but
Contemporary art is the art of today. It is both a mirror of
contemporary society and a window through which we view and
deepen our understanding of the world and ourselves. It is much
like a visual history book in that it engages what is happening in
the world around us. Contemporary art draws upon viewers’
personal connections to a work of art, but also acknowledges
the dialogic possilbilities.
Curiosity, acceptance that you can apply your own ideas to art,
nobody physically hears it. I like to think we are all walking jukeboxes,
and that my artwork in many ways puts the coin into you that allows you
to play the song internally.”
8
Discuss the quote above with your group.
Find another artwork in the gallery where Robleto uses melted or
pulverized vinyl records or spliced tape. What sounds do you think
they hold?
and open discussion are the most important tools you will need
to appreciate contemporary art. Oftentimes art viewers assume
that they should be able to immediately understand or “get”
what they see before them. And if not, they may walk away
feeling confused or frustrated.
With contemporary art, great importance is attached to the role
STOP 3
Alloy Of Love
2005
36 x 36 x 4 inches
Charlotte and Bill Ford
of the viewer. The viewer becomes an active participant in the
process of creating meaning. The viewer needs to give himself or
herself “permission” to really look at the artwork and derive his/
her own meaning from it. Because art is influenced by the world
around us, more often than not, the viewer will assume some of
the same ideas about the art and its meaning as the artist.
Robleto is both an avid researcher and a poetic storyteller. As he
explains, “I am interested in materials that exist solely because of
these very dramatic moments in history.” He also says, “I would never
claim that I am a historian in any academic sense of the word, but I
have come to understand that any good historian marks what they
do by breaking new ground even if it revolves around a story told a
million times before. This is why sampling has always been so appealing
to me. It suggests that there are a limitless number of stories in anything around you if you just know where and how to look. But it’s not
just about finding a story; it’s about finding stories that shed light on
bigger things in the human condition. I consider uncovering those things
part of my job as an artist, just as much as making an object.”
9
l What do you think interested the artist when making this sculpture?
20
5
GALLERY ACTIVITIES
THE CULTURE OF DJ SAMPLING AND MUSIC AS
A GUIDING PRINCIPLE IN DARIO’S WORK
STOP 1
Sometimes Billie Is All That
Holds Me Together
Robleto uses the techniques of modern DJs (i.e. selecting, sampling,
1998–99
Dimensions variable
Collection of Rebecca and Alexander
Stewart, Seattle, Washington
rials. When he mixes sound he literally melts records and splices and
sequencing, and mixing) as part of his process and selection of matestretches audio tape. He searches for rare sounds in order to create
new meaning. The sounds that he uses are highly selective and always
specific to the story he is trying to spin. He asks viewers to imagine
Robleto talks about music records as carriers of both communal
how sound can be re-constructed and visualized.
and private meaning.
Robleto has been interviewed several times regarding this topic.
l What personal objects carry meaning for you?
In one discussion, the interviewer, Ian Berry, asked:
Q: Do you consider your sculptures as having musical parallels?
l What stories or memories do they hold?
A: I would definitely argue that I am making music. A musician or
someone really grounded in music may not think so, but that‘s what
l Does meaning reside in the object, or does it reside in you?
DJ culture and the avant-garde tradition, with John Cage and Karlheinz
Stockhausen, opened the door to. The techniques of a DJ–spinning,
splicing, scratching song selection and sequencing–are things that
make you a good DJ technically. I simply transfer them over to
STOP 2
materials. That’s part of why I would argue that I’m making music.
Untitled
I don’t expect music to be only an audible experience, and there’s
1998–99
1 1/2 x 1 x 1 inches
Collections of Peter Norton
and Eileen Harris Norton,
Santa Monica, California
a tradition of that in music. I think I’m in that trajectory of music
making. For example, in Our Sin Was In Our Hips, my mother’s and
father’s hips are igniting some kind of music in the room. Even with
the pieces that have specific references, like Patsy Cline, I like to
believe that if ten people are in the room, they’re all playing the song
l What materials has the artist used to create this sculpture? What hap-
in their heads and there are ten different songs playing at different
pens when you reconstruct an object?
moments, which is how a DJ would overlap things. But it’s all
personalized. There’s an empty room in a sense, but it’s booming
with music if you consider the internalized soundtracks that the
l How does this sculpture relate to Hip Hop / DJ sampling?
viewers are playing in their heads. I would argue that I’m making
music in that way.
l What makes a good DJ?
Q: You talked about sampling as a healing gesture. How does this
play out in your work and how do you see it affecting the world
at large?
19
6
END NOTES
A: I definitely want to contribute to these ideas of healing,
sampling, and people reinvestigating its political and critical
possibilities. Sampling allows us to go back in time. I’m mesmerized
by these recordings, like Natalie Cole singing a duet with her dead
father or the remaining Beatles filling in the blanks of John’s voice
1 Bea Camacho, The Magic That’s Possible. Dario Robleto talks about
his work with Bea Camacho (Present!, an obliterary magazine and lif
band, 2004), http://www.presentspace.com/presenttwo/presents/
robleto/robleto.htm
2
Ian Berry, Medicine on the Spoon: A Dialogue with Dario Robleto,
The Frances Young Tang Teachers Museum And Art Gallery
at Skidmore College and the Frye Art Museum,
Seattle, WA, 2008, p. 257
3
Elizabeth DUnbar, Eunuch Euthanasia, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art,
Wichita, KA, 2004, p. 4
4
Ian Berry, Medicine on the Spoon: A Dialogue with Dario Robleto,
The Frances Young Tang Teachers Museum And Art Gallery
at Skidmore College and the Frye Art Museum,
Seattle, WA, 2008, p. 272
5
James Chute, MCASD ‘Soundwaves’ a Sampler Plate
of ‘Found’ Art, Sampling, (The San Diego Union-Tribune, 2007)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070916/news_
lz1a16sample.html
6
Ian Berry, Medicine on the Spoon: A Dialogue with Dario Robleto,
The Frances Young Tang Teachers Museum And Art Gallery
at Skidmore College and the Frye Art Museum,
Seattle, WA, 2008, p. 272
7
Regina Bash interviews Dario Robleto
http://www.interreview.org/RBonDR.html
8
Ian Berry, Medicine on the Spoon: A Dialogue with Dario Robleto,
The Frances Young Tang Teachers Museum And Art Gallery
at Skidmore College and the Frye Art Museum,
Seattle, WA, 2008, p. 266
9
Ibid, p. 259
since he’s long gone. Sampling allows these weird things to happen,
that are real and that count now. They are real new creations, but
the past is loaded in them. The technology is so accurate that it
sounds like Nat King Cole, Natalie’s father, is singing in the same
room with her and a contemporary listener who doesn’t know that
history would not know otherwise, so it’s real in a sense. The healing
thing is where I merge this knowledge of history. Like when I pluck
those bullets through time, they’re such a precious object that I
better know what I’m talking about or else it’s a huge disrespect, in
my opinion, to its history. But in 2004, with what we know now and
with the benefit of the hindsight of history, can I pluck something up
to this moment and contribute to its healing today? I want to heal
back through time and this is still the metaphor I’m trying to push
out. Can I heal through time? Does art have the power to fix something that never got fixed, to correct a wrong that’s never been resolved? “What can art do anymore?” is what I ponder every day.
What can it really do? So as artists, what if you walk into your studio
every day and say, “Today I’m going to make something that works,”
what if you just make that little shift in your head when you walk in
the studio: These are the problems that I’m setting up right now.
FRYE ART MUSEUM
www.fryemuseum.org
7
18
ACTIVITY
LINER NOTES
NO POINT OF ENTRY INTO HISTORY IS TRIVIAL
Another important aspect of Robleto’s work is his listing of materials
Robleto once said, “If you don’t know the history, you’re just making
a jumbled mess. So sampling actually offers a way out of the
criticism of this generation because sampling insists that you know
your history. That you actually engage with it. That’s why I’m so
compelled to know my history.”
often provided with a CD or record that gives the listener a range of
information and details on the music. Robleto connects that same
idea to his listing of materials.
7
l Think about a time in history that you relate to, whether it was
something that happened yesterday or fifty years ago.
Create a story, song lyrics, prose, a list, a haiku, or a sketch that
describes that moment.
in what he refers to as his “liner notes.” Liner notes are the details
Robleto once explained: “That comes down to the role of my ‘liner
notes,’ which is how I refer to my captions, my titles, and lists of
materials. It’s real poetry at this point. I’m constantly balancing how
much information to provide to the viewer and asking myself, ‘How
much is too much?’
“I like the directness that comes from listing ‘bullet lead excavated
from various battlefields,’ rather than giving a long inventory of each
war. That supplementary information is crucial to me because I need
to know all of that when I’m making the work, but it’s not necessarily
as important for the viewer. For me, the issue involves responsibility
and respect. It is very important to me to honor the materials I use,
which means I need to know them inside and out. I do have this
information and consider it while I am making my work, but when
the object is fully incorporated into a new thing it becomes
supplementary.
The oral storytelling tradition comes into play around this idea. The
ephemeral quality of this tradition fits nicely with many of my themes.
I have always loved that an oral tradition requires a responsibility
from the listener and that the fate of a story hinges on others
participating. This fragile mode of communication suits my work.”
2
17
8
BACK AT SCHOOL
ROBLETO’S USE OF MATERIALS
Another core issue in Robleto’s work is his use of materials that exist
because of dramatic moments in history. The artist uses materials
that are real but might seem fantastical. His art is always rooted in
true stories. Facts are important to him and he has a deep respect for
his materials and their histories. Robleto’s work pushes viewers to
question the human condition and find new meaning in the world.
The artist asks us to take responsibility for the past and seems to
be showing us that we can participate in the construction of history.
“In a way, Robleto’s art is protest art–subtle yet unmistakably
critical, fueled by the desire to make the future a better one for all.
Sincere works of art that compel us to remember, think, and, he
hopes, act.”
l Explore musicians, scientists, inventors, artists, and writers that
Robleto identifies with, such as Billie Holiday, Stephen Hawking, Hellen
Keller, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Patsy Cline, Kurt Cobain, Jennifer Michael
Hecht (author of Doubt: A History), Jorge Luis Borges, Wilfred Owen,
Walt Whitman, and Thomas Edison.
l Choose an issue of personal relevance and create a work of art
in any form or combination of forms that comments on that issue.
l Ask students what sorts of personal stories they tell about them-
selves and which stories from daily culture or historic culture seem
to resonate with them.
3
l Discuss what it is to be a viewer and what it is to be a participant.
In an interview for the Alloy of Love catalogue Robleto talks
with Ian Berry:
selves within their own definition of history. How do we participate in
Q: “You have recently completed a long series of works based on a
wandering American soldier. How did that series first start to form?
DR: With the wandering soldier I took my usual planning a step
further and storyboarded the whole narrative. It was as if I was
going to make a film, except I made sculpture instead. September
11 deeply impacted me, and obviously everybody, but I remember
very clearly deciding that day to make a change in my strategy and
thinking as an artist, and commit to it long term. I had to reevaluate
everything, including the materials I used. That’s when you see the
shift in materials, starting to use the bone, for example. I remember
very clearly telling myself to either go all the way or don’t go at all.
If I want to talk about the destruction of the human body in warfare there is no way to avoid the fact that people turn to dust on the
battlefield. I went forward knowing that I would handle these objects
in a sensitive way, because I didn’t want the work to ever be reduced
to shock. At the same time I’m not one to avoid what they are, and
the destruction that’s needed to make them.”
l Discuss what history means to students, and how they place them-
4
the constructions of history?
l We all sample every day. We’ve become a sampling society.
Our iPod playlists or our favorite websites are all part of
making meaning out of seemingly infinite possibilities.
Ask students what ways they sample.
l What are some examples of songs that use sampling,
that students currently listen to?
16
9
BEFORE COMING TO THE MUSEUM
To prepare students for visiting the exhibition we recommend
the following questions and activities:
l Have the students read the self-guided materials. In small groups,
have them discuss the materials and create a list of questions they
have about the artwork.
l Ask how the materials that artists use to create art have changed
over time.
l Discuss examples of traditional and contemporary materials
used by artists.
l Contemplate in what ways the liner notes change the ways in which
viewers see and think about Dario’s work.
l Ask students to find parallels between the way music moves and
grows, and the way culture moves and grows.
We also encourage teachers and students to study Robleto’s artwork on the
following websites:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070916/news_lz1a16sample.html
http://www.presentspace.com/presenttwo/presents/robleto/robletoessay.htm
http://weatherspoon.uncg.edu/exhibitions/exh_detailp.asp?WamExID=82
http://www.damelioterras.com/exhibition.html?id=8
http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/past/robleto.php
http://www.interreview.org/RBonDR.html
NOTES
10
15
ABOUT THE WORKS OF ART
A Defeated Soldier
Wishes To Walk His Daughter
Down The Wedding Aisle
STOP 1
Sometimes Billie Is All
That Holds Me Together
1998–99
Dimensions variable
Collection of Rebecca and
Alexander Stewart, Seattle
Cast of a hand-carved wooden and iron leg that a wounded
Civil War soldier constructed for himself made from melted vinyl
records of The Shirelles’ “Soldier Boy” and femur bone dust,
fitted inside a pair of WWI military cavalry boots made from
melted vinyl records of Skeeter Davis’s “The End Of The World,”
oil can filled with homemade tincture (gun oil, rose oil,
bacteria cultured from the grooves of Negro prison songs
and prison choir records, wormwood, goldenrod, aloe juice,
resurrection plant, Apothecary’s rose and bugleweed),
brass, rust, dirt from various battlefields, ballistic gelatin,
white rose petals, white rice
This installation is a great example of how storytelling, history, materials and sampling are important to Dario’s process and final artwork.
The artist states: “For the piece A Defeated Soldier Wishes To Walk His
Daughter Down the Wedding Aisle, I found the real story of a Civil War
soldier who carved his own leg out of a piece of wood and made him-
STOP 2
self an iron foot so that he could do that very thing—walk his daughter
Untitled
1998-1999
1 1/2 x 1 x 1 inches
Collections of Peter Norton
and Eileen Harris Norton,
Santa Monica, California
down the wedding aisle. During the Civil War for the government to
supply soldiers with prosthetic limbs was not even an option, so there
was a whole generation of soldiers who had to take that into their own
hands. That blew me away. What if you had to carve your own body
part? But again, it’s a story of love, and some extreme event in his life,
which pushed him hard enough to grapple with that idea.”
6
11
14
Sometimes Billie Is All That
Sometimes
Billie
Is All That
Holds Me
Together
Holds Me Together
Hand-ground and melted vinyl records,
Hand-ground
and melted
various clothing,
acrylic,vinyl
sprayrecords,
paint
various clothing, acrylic, spray paint
STOP 5
A Defeated Soldier
Wishes to Walk His
Daughter Down the
Wedding Aisle
2004
21 x 20 x 80 inches
Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, purchased
with funds provided by
Tina Petra, Ken Wong,
and Gibson Dunn
In this artwork each button represents a different article of
In this artwork each
buttonone
represents
different article
of found or
clothing–originally
missing
or moreabuttons–that
Robleto
clothing–oribinally
missing
one or more
buttons–that
Robleto found
or
purchased.
To replace
the missing
button(s),
Robleto identified
a Billie
purchased.
replace
thetomissing
button(s),
identified
a Billie
Holiday
lyricTo
that
related
where he
located Robleto
that particular
item.
He
Hoiday
lyric that
related
where phrase
he located
that
particular
item.
He
then
extracted
that
exacttomusical
from
Holiday’s
vinyl
records,
then extracted
that the
exact
musicaltophrase
Holiday’s
vinyl
records,
melting
and mixing
material
create from
facsimiles
of the
original
melting and
theRobleto
material
to create
facsimiles
of the original
buttons.
For mixing
example,
created
buttons
for a woman’s
coat he
buttons.
For example,
Robleto
created
for a woman’s
coat
found
curbside
with Holiday
lyrics
aboutbuttons
being kicked
to the side
ofhe
the
found After
curbside
with Holiday
about being
kicked
to the
sidearticle
of the
road.
attaching
the newlyrics
button(s),
Robleto
returned
each
road.
After to
attaching
thespot
newwhere
button(s),
Robleto
article
of
clothing
the exact
he located
it. returned
He made each
one extra
of clothing
to the
exact
whereithe
it. He made one extra
button
for each
item
andspot
reserved
forlocated
the artwork.
button for each item and reserved it for the artwork.
Untitled
Untitled
Vinyl record, iron pyrite (fool’s gold), glue
Vinyl record, iron pyrite (fool’s gold), glue
For this work Robleto slowly sliced along the outer rim of Patsy Cline’s
ForFall
this
Robleto
slowly
along
outer rim
Patsythen
Cline’s
“I
Topiece
Pieces”
45 rpm
vinylsliced
record
untilthe
reaching
the of
center,
“I Fall To Pieces”
45long
rpm thread
vinyl record
until reaching
center, then
connected
into one
and spooled.
Robletothe
frequently
connected
into
one
long
thread
and
spooled.
Robleto
frequently
samples music in his artwork. As he explains: “An object can activate
samples
music
in his so
artwork.
he explains:
“Ansounds
object in
can
a
sound in
a person,
I don’tAs
often
use audible
myactivate
pieces.
a
sound
in
a
person,
so
I
don’t
often
use
audible
sounds
in
my
pieces.
I’m a big believer we’re all sort of walking jukeboxes, and the artwork
I’m a
bigthe
believer
walking
jukeboxes,
and thehas
artwork
can
put
coin inwe’re
you, all
andsort
youofplay
it internally.
Everybody
an
can
put
the
coin
in
you,
and
you
play
it
internally.
Everybody
has
experience of Patsy Cline, for example. So, if I played Patsy in thean
experience
Patsy
Cline,
for different
example.viewers
So, if I walk
played
in theto play
room,
that’sofone
thing.
If ten
byPatsy
and have
room,
that’s
one
thing.
If
ten
different
viewers
walk
by
and
have
to play
‘Crazy’ in their head, I like that they bring their own baggage of the
‘Crazy’
in their
I likeargue
that they
bring
their
own baggage
song
with
them.head,
I always
there’s
a lot
of music
going onofinthe
the
5
song
with
them.
I
always
argue
there’s
a
lot
of
music
going
on
in
the
room, it’s just all internal. You just can’t hear it.”
room, it’s just all internal. You just can’t hear it.”
5
13
12
Alloy of Love
STOP 3
Alloy Of Love
2005
36 x 36 x 4 inches
Charlotte and Bill Ford
Collection
Soldier’s uniform fabric and thread from various wars,
military blanket wool from various wars, homemade paper
(pulp made from soldiers’ letters sent home and wife/sweetheart
letters sent to soldiers from various wars, ink retrieved from letters,
cotton), excavated and melted bullet lead and shrapnel, braided
human hair, Civil War soldiers’ woven hair, excavated locket and
chain, military buttons, colored paper, mahogany
In this work Robleto explores the history of war through storytelling
and sampling. His material list, or what he calls his liner notes, are
very important. They are not separate from, but part of each artwork
he creates, reinforcing the alchemy and history attached to
his process.
Dario’s Shredded Love Letters
STOP 4
Dario’s Shredded
Love Letters
1997
4 1/4 x 2 x 1/2 inches
Collection of
Gregory Higgins,
Dallas, Texas
Pill bottle, pill capsules, shredded love letters
from 7th through 9th grade years,
homemade labels with text front and back
Robleto’s romantic streak is captured in this artwork, a bottle
containing “pills” made from his torn-up love letters from
junior high school days.