OSWALDO MACIÁ IS NOT YOUR ORDINARY SCULPTOR. A lot of his work, for instance, is not visual. In fact, he works primarily with sound and smell. If you’re confused, that’s OK – his goal is to get you to think beyond your “ocularcentric” understanding of art.
What exactly does this look like? Well, again, better to ask what it sounds like or smells like. His olfactory-acoustic sculptures all revolve around the themes of migration and cross-pollination on our planet.
In his recent project, “New Cartographies of Smell Migration,” Maciá filled a room with what he calls “historical, geographical and biological dimensions of smell,” including the scent of tree resin and styrax gum. (His long-standing collaborator is Ricardo Moya, Senior Perfumer of International Flavors & Fragrances.)
These immersive exhibits have shown around the world, everywhere from the Tate Modern to the Venice Biennale to his home city of Cartagena de Indias. And, as the Vladem museum’s first artist in residence, we’ll be treated to his newest exhibition at the museum this fall.
What will your new exhibition look – or sound – like?
It is an eight-channel audio composition, with eight megaphones hanging from the ceiling.
I call it The Cross, or The Crossing. It leads people to concentrate on the acoustic rather than the visual. And you may not be able to tell where the sound is coming from.
This will be a sculptural composition formed of sound. But it still operates as sculpture. Sculpture is about the relationships people have to the space and volumes that form the world. I’m utilizing a wider perceptual range, which opens itself to subjectivity over objectivity, experience over knowledge.
I live and work in London and here in Santa Fe. These are both crossing points. Movement, crossing, passing. This is what the show is about. We are always in that kind of transitional moment. Santa Fe has always been about migration of people and animals.
What kind of animals are featured?
A very long list. Many of the noises you’ll hear are animal calls.
Take the bats. You normally can’t hear them because their calls are out of our aural range. But now you hear them.
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Photo Courtesy Oswaldo Maciá
