UA School of Art Professor David Taylor and Mexican artist Marcos Ramírez ERRE have received national attention for their collaborative project, DeLIMITations, an examination of the nature and history of borders, seen at The Photography Show, one of the world’s most prestigious annual photography fairs (April 4-7), and currently on view at Rick Wester Fine Art in New York City, through June 1.
Prior to the exhibition in New York, the duo’s project toured widely and was featured in Time magazine and the Los Angeles Times, which detailed their 30-day marathon to place 47 six-foot-six-inch obelisks along the original 1821 U.S.-Mexico border and then the resulting exhibition based on that experience.
The completed work may well be among the most expansive installation art pieces ever conceived.
“One thing that we found really fascinating,” Taylor told Time, “was going to places like Medicine Bow, Wyoming, which would have been a border town. People had no concept of the fact that Mexico stretched that far north.”
Following a year of preparation, markers were placed in the summer 2014. Frequently the artists are asked if the markers still remain where they were installed.
“We can’t know,” Taylor writes on the DeLIMITations blog. “That was part of the plan. Borders move and change.”
DeLIMITations Photos | NYT 2019 review | LA Times 2016 feature | Time 2014 feature
The exhibition, consisting of ERRE and Taylor’s photography, objects and other documentation, was reviewed on May 16 in the New York Times by Jillian Steinhauer, who covers the intersection of art and politics.
“(The obelisks) monumentalize the transitory nature of the border, driving home its arbitrariness and bureaucracy,” she wrote. “The pictures showcase a landscape whose recesses and vistas contain the invisible truths of history, and encourage us to go out in search of them.”
The 2400-mile long site-specific installation project was originally commissioned by SITE Santa Fe for the 2014 exhibition Sitelines. The gallery exhibition, which documents that intervention, has since been shown at venues that include the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; the Museo de las Artes Universidad de Guadalajara; the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington and Oficina de Proyectos Culturales in Puerto Vallarta.
Taylor previously documented all of the obelisks that mark contemporary U.S.-Mexico border in a photographic series, Monuments: 276 Views of the United States – Mexico Border, from 2008 to 2015.
Most recently, Taylor has been awarded a residency at the prestigious La Tallera – Proyecto Siqueiros in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he will embark upon new work.
Dig Deeper: Learn more about the DeLIMITations exhibition from the Rick Wester Fine Art website, including a treasure trove of photos from the gallery and the field. Check it out!