The elegance of Taraneh Hemami’s window installation for the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is translation of an often contentious season of contemporary politics into a dazzling and contemplative work.   Entitled FREE, the enormous radiating star of laser cut pattern overtakes the façade of the museum window with an ebullient celebration of Arab Spring.   At the center of the star is a neon sign.  The delicate yellow script of Arabic text at the core is encircled with a ring of the words, FREE, blinking blue around the circumference in succession.  Hemami describes this movement as a chant, FREE, FREE, FREE, reverberating the message of the demonstrations which took place throughout  the Middle East this past Spring.   For those who can read it, the Arabic text is legible from the outside looking in while the English text, is in reverse, legible only from the inside looking out.   The English speaking world are the implied insiders while the Arab speaking world remains excluded, only outside gazing in.

The storefront window on which the piece is installed stretches nearly the full length of the entry façade of the Center for the Arts building designed by Fumihiko Maki in. the early 1990’s.  As such, FREE fronts onto Yerba Buena Gardens, a quiet oasis of a park, just steps away from the busy commerce of the city separated by a change in level and a fortress of buildings lining the commercial streets surrounding.   As the viewer crosses the park to approach the entrance, the patterns of FREE’s star magically transform into a three dimensional dome curving up into space.  The neon star has taken the place of the central oculus (a skylight at the center, the all seeing eye) of the dome. The use of several different sizes of line widths heightens this illusion of depth. The mirrored surface of the primary patterns simultaneously reflect the garden and sky, while echoing the metal texture of the building panels, blending into the surface of the façade while the double thick double lines of translucent blue present a bold graphic to the plaza.  The stylistic iconography of the Middle East is instantly recognizable yet more evocative then literal.   In a time when the proposal of a masque at the World Trade Center is hotly debated in country based on spiritual freedom, it is reassuring to the see the quiet beauty of Hemami’s installation stake a claim in the public sphere.

Inside, the patterns flatten into a two dimensional screen casting a dizzying display of shadow, light and color, overtaking the entry lobby within.   The thinnest mirrored lines become a delicate lace through which to gaze upon the gardens beyond.  The double blue lines form larger blocks of color which travel across the furniture, stairs and people milling about.  The shadows move as the day passes, as if tentacles of the work are seeping outwards much like the spirit of freedom emanating across the Middle East.   The repetitive blinking of the neon from this side is soothing, the text is legible and reassuring;  The call for freedom is one to which we can all agree.

Preview of Review for Sculpture Magazine