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Mar negro (Black sea) detail
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I've travelled out and back through Calais ferry port this month, past the new fence and the sprawling encampment, so a chance viewing of Mar negro at MACBA (Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art) has been resonating strongly. Part of the current Desires and Necessities exhibition, Carlos Aires' huge multi-coloured artwork is sited on the floor of MACBA's vast white and glass atrium. It's the first exhibit you encounter on entering the building, providing a striking and poignant welcome.
The work and accompanying film were made in 2012. MACBA's text reads:
"Mar negro by Carlos Aires has been made with fragments of wood from old boats and frail immigrants' vessels that have ended up in a ship graveyard in Cadiz. Constructed to resemble parquet in a herringbone pattern, although far from being a purely geometrical combination, this wooden 'floor' brings to mind the remains of illegal vessels bearing people from Africa who have tried, successfully or otherwise, to fulfil their dream of entering European territory. An accompanying video shows images of the wood being removed from the boats and the process of making the floor. Carlos Aires has recovered material remains of a great human tragedy that is now occurring in the Mediterranean in order to transform them into an object of great formal and conceptual effect."
"Mar negro by Carlos Aires has been made with fragments of wood from old boats and frail immigrants' vessels that have ended up in a ship graveyard in Cadiz. Constructed to resemble parquet in a herringbone pattern, although far from being a purely geometrical combination, this wooden 'floor' brings to mind the remains of illegal vessels bearing people from Africa who have tried, successfully or otherwise, to fulfil their dream of entering European territory. An accompanying video shows images of the wood being removed from the boats and the process of making the floor. Carlos Aires has recovered material remains of a great human tragedy that is now occurring in the Mediterranean in order to transform them into an object of great formal and conceptual effect."
Socially engaged art of a most contemporary kind.
