Siah Armajani
For Between the Lakes, Armajani has created a sculptural installation exploring the tenets of Emerson’s teachings regarding nature, man, and life, and the work of art. Although Armajani was born and raised in Iran, he was introduced at a young age to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and other American proponents of democracy and populism. During his research for this exhibition, Armajani discovered that Emerson traveled to Wisconsin in 1860 and addressed the state legislature on February 23rd; this singular event, recorded in a letter Emerson wrote to his daughter Ellen, became a point of departure for the artist. Mixing Emerson’s ideas and the legacy of his ideas, Armajani visualizes for us the influence of Emersonian ideals in the progressive land of Wisconsin.
Entitled Emerson’s Parlor, the work consists of three glass spaces and several symbolic objects, including a wooden coffin, a table, two bare bed frames, a white house with a black roof, a scarecrow, and a diamond-shaped mirror. Both the coffin and the white house relate to a seminal time in Emerson’s life when his first wife, Ellen Tucker, died of tuberculosis. Grief stricken, Emerson was said to have opened her coffin and witnessed the corpse himself. The white house relates to Old Manse, where Emerson lived when Ellen died, and to the house Victor Hugo occupied during his exile from France. In addition, the diamond-shaped mirror embedded in the wall of the structure underscores Emerson’s belief in self-evaluation and exploration. Loss, exile, self-reflection, and transparency demonstrate Armajani’s interest in bringing Emerson’s ideas to physical form.