Enigmas

Installation at TZ’Art, New York City

Dimensions:
H. 10 x W. 45 x D. 3 feet (304.8 x 1371 x 91.4 centimeters)

Materials:
Water, Graphite, Pigment, Mirror, Chemicals, Glass, and Gold.

Elements:
crisp vertical shadow of human figure and distorting anamorphic projections; horizontal earthen red horizon line; cube of carbon; glass cylinder filled with water; portrait mirror and shelf holding elements and compounds in laboratory beakers and jars

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Project Description:

Corprea was a contemplation of the human body as the sum of its physical material, installed across a 45’ expanse of wall. The most evident element of the work was an arc of descending shadows that began with a vertical, perfectly formed male figure. Fanning from left to right, successive figures stretched and progressively distorted, finally descending into a monstrous, horizontal form that lay prone against an earthen red horizon line.

Directly in front of the vertical figure stood a hollow, glass column filled with the average quantity of water the adult human body contains. This column acted as a lens, both reflecting and magnifying the form behind it. Just above the red horizon (to the far right of the figure), a solid carbon cube represented the quantity of carbon contained in the average adult.

A portrait mirror and shelf (left of the figure) reflected both viewer and various laboratory jars containing the remaining elements and compounds of the human body in their correct proportions, as well as a recipe that quantified the remaining components of the imperceptible volumes of gases and trace elements.

Corprea considered the fragility of human life in contrast to the enduring physical presence of the elements that comprise the human body.