Micaela de Vivero, “The You and The I,” 2015, Dyed sisal, acrylic painted polyurethane, glass rods, Courtesy the Kansas City Artists Coalition.
Micaela de Vivero’s exhibit at the Kansas City Artists Coalition highlights the artist’s experiments with a wide assortment of non-traditional media. As you enter the room, you are surrounded by transformed objects that evoke an innovative laboratory. The artist’s unconventional and repurposed materials speak to dreamlike encounters, while also exploring experiences of daily life. She is most interested in the relationship between observer and installation — how the viewer becomes a part of the work by navigating through the space.
Born in Germany, raised in Ecuador, and a veteran of multiple international residencies, the artist currently teaches in the United States. Her aim, she says, is to “create surfaces, membranes, screens, borders, skins and wrappings that talk about boundaries, differences and similarities.”
In Current (2016), numerous cotton threads fan out from a small metal plate, loop through hooks in a nearby wall, and finally dangle towards the floor, weighted by rough pebbles bound with brightly colored cotton. The work feels like a two-dimensional composition given volume and drawn in space. The threads become an ethereal and translucent screen, a boundary between window and room. Or considering the artist’s interest in immigration policy and borders, it could also be read as a fence and barrier between one person and another.
Another interpretation perhaps relates to the installation’s title. Do the strings instead denote an electrical current, power that allows humans to connect with one another across the globe? de Vivero encourages collaboration with her viewers, encouraging them to bring their own experiences and understanding to the work.
Push-pinned directly to the wall, Oro no es (2016) is a minimal diptych that stretches across a wide expanse of wall space. The uneven and irregular quality of the flaxen hand-made paper surface contrasts with the shiny delicate gold leaf largely adhered to the edge. By walking along the work, the viewer experiences the undulations of the paper rippling back and forth, casting irregular shadows throughout the piece.
Perhaps most striking is the surreal installation, The You and The I (2015). According to KCAC assistant director Marissa Starke, the memory-triggering work was made after de Vivero gave birth, and was inspired in part by the difficult experience of labor. Following her inclusion in the 2013 Meet My Uterus exhibit at Ceres Gallery in New York, The You and The I continues the artist’s consideration of the female body and its controversial position within contemporary society.
The piece comprises a dangling array of glass rods covered with coarse sisal crochet that oozes expandable foam. This visceral environment feels like a passage inside an organism. Painted in red, orange, umber, and purple, these foam and fiber elements suggest organic forms and interior body structures.
de Vivero’s installations also display her interest in the relationship that sculpture has with gravity. The tensions among the components — the ceiling, the wall, the suspended structures, and the floor—are what create a lasting visual impact.
“Micaela de Vivero” continues at the Kansas City Artists Coalition, 201 Wyandotte St., through Nov. 4. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday. For more information, 816.421.5222 or kansascityartistscoalition.org.
