To Crash: Making a Star (fallen star)
Joan Miró Foundation, Montjuic Park
Barcelona, Spain
November 23, 2012 – January 6, 2013
Each year since 2007, the Joan Miró Foundation hosts a special installation around Christmas time to celebrate the traditional winter festivities. This year, Barcelona artist Jaime Pitarch created To Crash: Making a Star to be displayed in the foundation’s Olive Tree Patio.
A Mercedes crashed into the centenary olive tree in the courtyard of the Joan Miro Foundation. The typical diplomatic car; a symbol of luxury, power and reliability – an object of desire in our materialistic society. The car’s radio continues to play, broadcasting the news in real time, placing the work in the present. The car is still crashing; the action, as defined in English grammar, occurs in the present continuous.
Another aspect of this work is the symbol of the car: a star. Knowing that this is a Christmas installation induces the spectator to question its meaning within the context of the holidays. In the Christmas tale, the star is the light which guides the Magi. Here it is a familiar logo, crowning the wreck of the car.
As in previous work, Pitarch’s minimal interventions seek to expose the consequences of a materialistic culture by revealing the sense of loss inherent to the human condition. The installation acts as a group of signs (visual, acoustic, symbolic and even olfactory) which must be deciphered. Reflecting on these signs could be a substitute for the consumerist rituals so typical of the holidays which gradually empty them of any spiritual meaning.
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