Hyperallergic
27 October 2017
In London, this exhibition considers the limbo of existence that Puerto Rico is subjected to by the US.
Allora & Calzadilla Confront Puerto Rico’s Fraught Relationship with the US
The Puerto Rico-based artist duo examine a tense, close connection with a poetic show using sculpture, performance, photo, and video.
It begins with oranges. Shortly after the United States acquired Puerto Rico from Spain, in the aftermath of its victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898, a merchant named Samuel Downes attempted to import oranges from the island into New York harbor. After being forced to pay import duties on the fruit, Downes sued the customs inspector, claiming the tax should never have been imposed, since the oranges came from a territory that was now part of the United States. The case reached the Supreme Court, which ruled against Downes, stating that, while the personal liberties of Puerto Rican citizens were sovereign under the Constitution, laws pertaining to finance and revenue were not. Writing the court’s majority opinion in 1901, Chief Justice Edward E. White referred to Puerto Rico as “foreign in a domestic sense.”
That absurd phrase titles collaborative duo Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla’s current exhibition at Lisson Gallery in London, which takes as its premise the strange limbo of existence to which Puerto Rico, an “unincorporated territory,” is subject by the United States. Allora & Calzadilla, who both live in Puerto Rico, open the show with “Loss” (2017), a bag of oranges cast in black wax and slumped on the floor just inside the gallery’s entrance. Viewers must pass the compact sculpture upon both entry and exit, the deceptively simple work a forceful reminder of the unbalanced historical and economic arrangement whereby the United States has mined the island for its resources for over a century, an arrangement that leaves the island flailing economically, without either the agency to right itself autonomously or the support to do so cooperatively with the U.S.
A 15-minute film, “The Night We Became People Again” (2017) anchors the show. Shot in a variety of locations around the island — a disused Commonwealth Oil Refining Company, Inc. (CORCO) petrochemical plant, a Central Rufina sugar refinery (where archaeologists have found remnants of the ancient Taíno and Saladoid cultures), and the cave in Guayanilla-Peñuelas where Allora & Calzadilla’s long-term installation “Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos)” (2015) is installed. To the mournful tones of an ambient vocalist approximating the sound of an electrical current, the camera patiently captures natural light as it pans across these empty sites. Formally, the film is exquisite. Allora & Calzadilla have a knack for catching the sun as it crosses hovering insects, rusting elements of machinery, and speckles of airborne dust, lending an almost sculptural quality to the two-dimensional imagery. All of the sites, devoid of any signs of human activity, suggest an abandoned world and serve as a poignant metaphor for the recent exodus of the island’s population, as Puerto Ricans look for better work opportunities and a more manageable cost of living on the United States mainland.