Echoes Gathering

By Isabel Santos

Imagine a set for a future battle. The parties in the conflict are not humans, animals, plants or other being that could fight for their own survival, but its reproductions, its echoes. On one side we have paintings, on the other, ready-mades. This conflict occurs in front of the eyes of those that visit the Museum of Contemporary Art where Néstor Millán presents his exhibition “Echoes gathering” up to the next January 7^th.

Between light and darkness

We were seated in the middle of the room contemplating the outcome of the conflict and we noticed that there was another battle taking place between the light and the darkness. “Ecotone”, explains Millán about the central piece of the room “is the strip between two ecosystems. It could be between the city and the jungle and it is a dangerous zone because they want to swallow each other”. That is how he described the artistic adventure he has embarked with this exhibition.

Painted images framed in wood little boxes (like a curio cabinet for home souvenirs) located to our left, seemed to coexist with little crystal palms and plastic flowers. Meanwhile, to our right, iridescent paper, little plastic men, colorful bubbles, rhinestones and other materials “of dubious reputation in national visual arts”, Millán joked, overcome their anonymity and become a whole system of symbols that prevails over painted images. Icons repeat themselves to one side and the other, like “resounding, visual, conceptual and mythological echoes”, explained the artist.

But all these characters, doesn’t matter the material they are made of, are carefully placed depending on their mission. “These are little stories that repeat themselves, it’s an image rebound, like a narrative”, said Millán, who assures that if he weren’t an artist he would have been a writer. “It is the story of two people, a man and woman, who engage on a journey and meet with other characters. There is an end to the story, she ends up in the “Nanny’s garden” and he ends up in the “Sea of Silence”, that are the last pieces in the right side of the room.

He did it for love of art

The show was designed by the artist himself to be installed specifically in this room and not in other. All the room’s set ups were designed by the artist, from the illumination design, to the color of the walls – to neutralize the green wood floor and make it feel like a garden – to the titles placements and the order in which the pieces would be hanged. “It was a proposal that I submitted to the Museum two years ago, with and educational purpose”, explained Millán who is professor of the University of Puerto Rico. That’s why the art pieces are not for sale, although there have been plenty of offers.

He already brought in his students to teach them the whole set up process of an exhibition. He told them about the way he chose the place, he produced the art pieces, he found and collected the little figures (a process even harder than painting itself) and the way he organized everything alone without the help of a commercial gallery. “We even did an expenses breakdown”, he said.

Even though he recognizes that carrying out this kind of project, without anybody’s help is very hard, Millán regrets that there are no more artist ready to produce art with educational purposes, non-profit. “If we artists don’t submit proposals to institutions, who is going to care about art?”

Like in a novel

In order to show the creative process from start to finish, this exhibition has a preamble like novels do. It is a man that faces uncertainty, before embarking himself to the endeavor. The name of the piece is “Ixis Afixis” and recalls that unclear answer from that fortune-teller in Delphos: “Ibis redibis non morieris in bello”. Go, come back, will not die in war. Or was it go, come back will not, die in war?