Miguel Angel Ríos
Blaffer Gallery
- Garland Fielder -
But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.
— Cormac McCarthy
Art is perhaps at its best when it presents the world with a simple and elegant image of itself. This is not its only purpose, but when such simulacra is achieved with grace, one cannot help but be stunned by the purity of message and the impact of delivery. The title of Miguel Angel Ríos’ exhibition, Aquí (Here), comes from the mouth of the artist as he directs the action of a work presented in two parts. The first is a mammoth multichannel video and audio installation and the second a similar two-channel video. Handcrafted tops—spinning, frantic, yet inherently contained in their range of motion on multiple screens—interact with each other in a dance of balance that the artist describes as a metaphorical excuse “to conceive violence.” The idea of tops as metaphor comes from the ancient Latin American game of trompos, where skilled spinners consorted in an effort to drive other players away from a sun diagram and into a moon sliver. The loser of the game was then sacrificed, his top impaled by the winner’s.
Ríos’ tops are painted either black or white and spin on a background that also alternates between these two extremes. It is difficult to convey just how effective this presentation is. The absence of color is an important choice. The tops spin in a methodical fashion—seamlessly from screen to screen—as Ríos’ voice can be faintly heard amidst the traveling hum, orchestrating throwers as to where to implement their efforts so as to capture a congruence of motion. The effect is dramatic and visceral; tops perversely cling to each other before they topple—a testament to the violent roots of the game at hand.
It is this violence that most interests Ríos. His original choice of the top as a symbolic device is well outlined in Friendly Fire, an accompanying documentary video on the development of his project. Trompos provides the perfect metaphor for the delicate balance of power that dominates Latin America. While this point might be didactic, the power and symbolism of the game is the work’s saving grace. Ríos’ reinterpretation of trompos in a confined setting—staged and directed—also succeeds on the merits of aesthetics, both auditory and visual. The dozens of tops spinning on stage resemble the most heartfelt and cathartic actors in nothing less than a Shakespearean drama.
Aquí also includes several large photographs of top throwers in action. Staged with a black background, these color images capture the technique of spinning along with the pendant fury and submission of the game. Ríos sees the cruelty of an oppressed life in the constricts of this metaphor and is horrified by it, but he is a profound enough artist to use that reaction in an attempt to spin the facts, as it were, into a manifesto of sorts—one that proclaims the dignity of mankind in the face of forces that would otherwise reduce existence to simplify a cruel game.
Garland Fielder is an artist and writer currently based in Houston.