Iván Navarro

 

 

 

Born Santiago, Chile, 1972.
Lives in New York City

Navarro’s roots in Santiago’s experimental contemporary art scene inclined him to a confident use of unconventional materials, interactive situations, and social critique. Since coming to the United States several years ago, his work has continued in this vein while confronting icons of Modernist art and design, including Gerrit Rietveld, Piet Mondrian, and Dan Flavin. His recent work centers on functional forms such as tables, chairs, and doorways. His vocabulary of simple repeated elements grounds his work in Minimalism, and his use of exposed fluorescent tubes pays overt homage to Flavin. But Navarro incorporates a range of political and cultural references to explore utopian and dystopian themes behind the veneer of formalist language. Electric Chairs (below left) recreates Rietveld’s De Stijl design icons, but their glowing electrical current and fragile material edge them toward discipline and punishment. Homeless Lamp (2004; above) presents a street person’s cart in white fluorescents, drawing its energy from a street lamp. Floorhole (2005; see 'Artificial Light' homepage) continues his series of illusionistic openings into walls and floors. Viewers looking into the shallow boxes seemed to peer into a bright infinity, helped by mirrors and one-way glass.