Intersections: Bernardi Roig

NO/Escape is a multi-faceted Intersections project at The Phillips Collection created by installing six interrelated sculptural works in unexpected interior and exterior spaces of the museum. The three indoor sculptures include Colour-Light Exercises, 2005, whose light tubes will cascade down the spiral staircase in the museum’s Goh Annex; An illuminated head for Blinky P. (The Gun), 2010, a life-size standing figure, and Insults to the Public, 2007, a video-sculptural piece, which will be installed vis-à-vis Honoré Daumier’s lithographs (c. 1850s) from the permanent collection in the second floor galleries. Roig draws parallels between his and Daumier’s works, both of which offer poignant commentary of social life of their time. The striking outdoor sculptures include Herr Mauroner, 2008, which will lean over the second floor balcony of the Phillips house; Acteón, 2005, which will hang on the exterior of the bridge connecting the Phillips house and Goh Annex; and the White Cage, 2013-14, a site-specific empty iron structure with fluorescent light. Commissioned for the Phillips, White Cage will occupy the corner of 21st and Q Streets outside the museum, activating the streetscape, and paying homage to Harry Houdini, the Hungarian-American stunt performer noted for his sensational escape acts.

In NO/Escape, Roig addresses the existential dualities of entrapment and liberation, blinding and illumination, absence and presence, and the ideas of memory and temporality. Typical for the artist’s work are the cruel-looking white plaster figures cast from real people, often cornered or crushed against walls, doors, or twisting in pain. By including the element of light—whether a single light bulb, neon tubes, or fluorescent lights—Roig’s work blends minimalist forms with highly charged content, expressive of contemporary anxiety and loneliness.