El viaje 1991

Luis Camnitzer made this unsettling, thought-provoking piece, "El Viaje," using knives and ping pong balls. What gets me right away is the directness of the materials. It’s not trying to be anything it isn’t, and I respect that. These gleaming, metallic blades stuck in the wall cast such sharp, decisive shadows. They almost feel like words, objects that have been put together in a specific order to communicate something, and they’re fixed into their positions. The ping pong balls – two, like eyes – give the knives a sinister personality. You can imagine them as a series of characters. Or are they victims? It has echoes of Arte Povera in its use of everyday materials, and in its playful treatment of found objects, I think of Duchamp. Art is always a journey, and in Camnitzer’s “El Viaje,” we’re invited to consider the journey and the destination: Are they connected?