A Secret Public Space

The door to the auditorium is slightly ajar. Inside is a large blank projection screen pulled down across the face of one wall and an entire theater of chairs arranged in carefully regimented rows near the center of the room. The place is empty. No one else is here. But...

By S. Pajot

July 29, 2010

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The door to the auditorium is slightly ajar. Inside is a large blank projection screen pulled down across the face of one wall and an entire theater of chairs arranged in carefully regimented rows near the center of the room. The place is empty. No one else is here. But human traffic seems to have passed through very recently. A few seats have been yanked wildly out of position. A couple of books from the tiny library — Chris Marker and Bauhaus 1919-1928 — have been removed, read, and laid facedown on the floor. The lights are flickering.

This is “Driftwood,” a conceptual installation by Gean Moreno and Ernesto Oroza on display at the Main Library through September 7. Incorporating both salvage-yard finds and materials from the Miami-Dade Public Library collection, “Driftwood,” according to the artists’ statement, “questions, tests, and ‘acts out’... [the] tensions between objects, cities, exhibition spaces, art, architecture, and design.”
Mon., Sept. 6, 2010

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