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Pepe Coronado's Obstrucciones
Each one of Pepe Coronado's images is the result of the simple manipulation of form: Strips of cut or torn paper are folded or bent and placed in a setting of temporary paper walls and a base, and then photographed in strong, direct light. Occasionally, this light source projects an image – a transparency of a previous paper construction – which washes over the structure like a kind of visual memory. When twelve of these images are strung together into a series called Obstrucciones, the logic of how each image is made is displaced by a singular compulsion to travel by sight, and by sight alone, through the warrens of this Kasbah of form and shadow.
The impulse is not to describe Obstrucciones, but to parallel its flow and hurdles with a corollary visual experience. In Jean-Luc Godard's film Alphaville the viewer traverses through a futuristic Paris. Obstructions and detours are the movie's life force – and through the visual turnstiles of these barriers and divergences the bewildered viewer hurdles from one aspect of the story to another.
The intention of Obstrucciones is to "obstruct," not "obscure" – the artist is very specific about this. So what is being obstructed? An unimpeded view of just where we are. Any inkling of what the eventual destination or outcome of our adventure might be. Or even a firm visual grasp of the terrain we have just passed through.
The poet Dante Alighieri begins The Inferno by saying that in the middle of his life he became lost in a dark wood. It is an old theme, based on an ancient sensation of unease.
What is the sensation of being lost in the woods? The traveler, or the traveler's eye, feels uneasy, loses confidence in how the path is unfolding, and looks behind for reassurance – and suddenly sees that nothing is as the eye recalls. And when the eye casts frantically ahead, the path is now no longer familiar. Everything has shifted in what was, just moments ago, the realm of the known.
It is at this point that Pepe Coronado's essential intention is achieved – the traveler has become a wanderer, and the familiar an obstruction.
Don Cook, Artist
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