The provocative title of the current exhibition at La Jolla’s Athenaeum Music & Arts Library is The Splinter in the Eye. Does artist Carlos Castro Arias want the viewer to remove the log in their own eye before offering criticism?
The mixed media, sensory installation challenges a naïve view of the world. To me, it appears to highlight historical disruptions and destruction resulting from developments brought on by civilization. It also suggests the ultimate failure of human ambition–the materialism and the conceits.
One thing is certain. These works by the artist can make one feel uneasy.
Severed limbs, the severed head of missionary priest Junipero Serra in a birdbath, visions of dripping blood and a baptismal pool of blood, bloodlike crosses projected onto the floor as if through the stained glass of a cathedral, dead taxidermy birds from a museum, fractured relics, plants growing through skeletons and blue jeans…all framed by rigid two-by-fours, as if the unstoppable construction of new things divides and overwhelms all.
Pieces in the exhibition have bizarre titles like Eating the Guts of Those Who Loved Me, Botox Against the Machine, Caffeine Overdose, and (don’t shoot the messenger, please!) Borderline Retarded. Yes, the effect of it all is rather depressing. Apart from representations of the ancient and the natural world, there seems to be little or nothing envisioned that is hopeful.
I know, many artists like to shock people with criticisms of modernity–in particular Western Civilization and its Christian heritage–but is the world of today really that bleak?
My question is: has the artist removed the log from his own eye?
Now I’m in trouble, I suppose.
Perhaps my attempt at interpretation is terribly uninformed. Perhaps I’m overreacting.
If you’d like to explore this bold artwork and come to your own conclusions, head on down to the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla before the exhibition ends on January 11, 2025.
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