Corey Zeigert Selects: Alfredo Jaar

Alredo Jaar
The Park of Laments

Very few pieces in the 100 Acres struck me quite as much as Jaar’s The Park of the Laments. It was like Jaar created a tunnel that led you into another realm, another Universe of some kind. It’s quiet and peaceful, yet oddly unnerving at the same time. I felt like when I exited that tunnel and went up the stairs to the courtyard, I felt as if I was lifted to another planet. Jaar is able to sort of suspend this disbelief by making sure there is only one way to get in and out, and by raising the courtyard above ground level, you’re given little perspective as to where you are or where you have come from. And oddly enough, I feel like you can get a feel for the artist more so in this place than if you were looking at a painting or photograph. In essence, this is his space, even though it’s located in a public space, everything serves a purpose that, in the end, only he knows; the way the plants are very purposefully laid out, yet create no real pattern; the way you can’t see the bottoms of the trees outside the courtyard, he’s given more emotion and intrigue to a space than I’ve seen in any other installation like it’s kind.


- c.z.