You Provide the Emotion

Santiago Cucullu exhibit at Milwaukee Art Museum through Jan. 4

By Irissol Arce

Like the passerby who is voyeuristically drawn into someone's living room by the faint flicker of a television screen through the window, unassuming spectators passing the Milwaukee Art Museum could be similarly enticed by Santiago Cucullu's outwardly facing televisions aligned along gallery windows. It's as if they're whispering mischievously: "Come in and get a closer look."

The TV installation is part of the exhibit "MF Ziggurat," created by the Milwaukee-based Argentinean artist. One exhibit theme is to draw a link between today's skyscrapers and the ziggurats (terraced temples with successively receding stories) of ancient Assyria and Babyon. The monumental centerpiece of the installation, created from large sheets of contact paper collaged onto the wall, depicts the ziggurat lying atop the modern world, blurring the line of beginning and end. Drawing from the concept of voyeuristic allure yet again, Cucullu incorporates the image of a surveillance camera vigilantly hovering over the ziggurat and the modern city sprouting from its basin. Below the modern cityscape is an Italian phrase: Ti vorei rivivere (I want to revive you). Cucullu says he incorporated the phrase to reinforce the idea of reliving a moment over and over again. He believes there is a sweetness to embracing simple moments that one finds great enough to relive.

Similarly evocative are his continuously looping videos, further toying with the notion of undefined timetables as vignettes that move "forward and backward," Cucullu says. "It has a visual rhythm." With that same romanticism for the simplistic, scenes include two lovers kissing; a train station shot at night; and a girl on a scooter who just waits and smokes, waits and smokes.

Cucullu received a master of fine arts degree in 1999 at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design after attending Hartford Art School in Connecticut. He has shown in New York, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Tokyo and London.

In his latest exhibit, Cucullu  has used the columns, arches, bays, windows and curves of the museums's galleria, working in concert with architect Santiago Calatrava's museum design.

From the fantastical to the realistic, Cucullu's creations are specific enough to ascertain meaning but abstract enough to empower the viewer to develop the story line. Cucullu recognizes, and encourages, an "interior dialogue" that happens between the viewer and artist. His often flat and abstract images drawn from personal experience provoke discourse, playing on the human ability, according to Cucullu, "to fill in the blanks."

Cucullu encourages such artistic interaction and is pleased when viewers react to his work. He recounts an experience he had while showing an exhibit in Japan titled "Come to Me," a colorful wall piece made up of layered plastic table skirting. "There was a girl who broke up with her boyfriend and saw this piece...afterward she contacted me and thanked me for making her feel a little better." He values such an emotional reaction to his work. "I see how amazing we are as people who can give emotion to other people," he says. "I think that is more than any story that I can attach to a piece of work."

Cucullo says he wants people to look at his work and say: "It makes me feel good, or I could do that." The "MF Ziggurat" exhibit, showing for free at MAM until Jan. 4, illustrates a playful and modern vibrancy that assures any passerby that it is truly alright to enter and enjoy the show."