Michael Tracy: SCULPTURES AND INSTALLATIONS
Horace Brockington
Michael Tracy remains
one of the most distinctive sculptors/artists of his generation. Extremely private,
but equally intense during the 80s and early 90s Michael Tracy created a body
of sculpture that defied the minimalism and conceptual tendencies of the time.
Tracy has lived in Texas for much of his life. Since l978 Tracy has lived in
a small border town of San Tgnacio Texas, no easy site to reach. But its location
bordering between Texas and Mexico seems appropriate for an artist whose works
aim to fuse southwestern culture and the Hispanic traditions of the MesoAmerica.
Michael Tracy art
is both representational and abstract— abstract in the sense that it is
without image and representational elements despite the fact Tracy employs actual
objects in his sculpture and installations, -swords, knives, human hair, flowers,
etc. These objects reference makes allusion to opposing polemics— violence,
and despair, courage and faith, tradition and change.
He is equally interested
in the physicality of the objects. He has pierced, stained, torn and covered
the sculptural and pictorial skin of his works. This act can be viewed as a type
of dismembering of the human form given since the 1970’s Tracy’s art
has been concerned with what he has describes as the “human essence”.
Terrence E. Dempsey has noted that some of Tracy artworks bears affinities to
the performances of contemporary Austrian artist Herman Nitsch whose ritualistic
disemboweling and tearing to pieces of “sacrificial animals” were intended
to be rituals of sublimation of humanity basic violent tendencies.
Creating a mysterious
world of the sacred and desirous Tracy’s body of works have consisted of
sculptures, canvases, crosses, altarpieces, collages, and installations. It is
a world filled with magenta, indigo, gold, oxide green, pink, and brown –
colors that proposed intricate meaning and fills the space and objects with temperament.
While his individual objects has often intrigued, it in his installations and
chapel-like constructions in which Michael Tracy’s art has its strongest
and deepest impact. The viewer is pulled into a sacred world whose themes equally
evoke ideas of earthly passion and rapture. Tracy’s installations fuse elements
of Latin American Roman Catholic iconography with an obsessive interest in the
ritualistic connections between religiosity and physicality. This is not surprising
given the complex duality of sacrificial rites of indigenous Meso-American cultures
and of Mexico Roman Catholic conquerors have continuously provided the focus
of Tracy’s artistic explorations and commentary.
Thomas McEvilley
and Edward Leffingwell, the curator of Tracy’s l987-88 traveling retrospective
“Terminal Privileges” (presented in New York at the PS.1 Museum) has
noted that Tracy’s work attempts to fuse a host of artistic traditions and
artists ranging from Duccio, Giotto, Caravaggio, Hugo van der Goes and Mark Rothko,
Antonin Artaud (founder of the “Theatre of the Cruel” “ in the
earlier part of the this century), filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini and filmmaker,
artist, writer and leader of a militant Japanese radical right wing group Ukio
Mishima. Similar to many in this group Tracy views himself as the sacrificial
artist.
Despite these influences
what clearly directs the work is Tracy’s deep interest in Mexican and MesoAmerican
cultural heritage. Throughout the years this influence has kept his work imbued
with a strongly religious character. However, part of its religious undertone
is derived from Tracy’s own Catholic upbringing and also by the Catholic
faith as experienced and understood by the Hispanic cultures. Tracy has constantly
referred to himself as an artist deeply committed to the unjust suffering of
millions of people that expresses itself in the liturgy and consecration.
In l977 Tracy began constructed a series of freestanding large-scale crosses,
works that reflected the Hispanic devotional practices. He has acknowledged that
it was through these works that he was able to represent without figuration the
reality of suffering people. One of the most outstanding in the series is dedicated
to Archbishop Romero, who was gunned down by Salvadoran right wing death quads
in l980 as he was celebrating mass. “ Cruz to Oscar Romero, Martyr of El
Salvador” (l981-82) is approximately six feet in height, created to resemble
a processional piece complete with carrying handles. From its cross-beam and
two huge horn spikes (positioned where the hands of Christ were secured) are
hung woven fabric cords at the end of which are devotional panels that evoke
scapulars. Protruding from the cross are bulls’ horns. Ed Leffingwell as
suggested that the horns could be seen “as signs of dangerous potency or
as symbols of the ritual sacrifice of the bull in Latin culture”. Terrence
Dempsey has likened them to Picasso’s use of the bull in Guernica as a statement
about the realities of human brutality.
The carrying handles
of this cross are wrapped in a fabric very similar in color to that of the bishop’s
robes as well as the colors used during the seasons of Advent and Lent. The fabric
has been worn thin and is stained with human perspiration. By this device Tracy
achieves a fusion of the viewer experiencing the work as the real symbol of suffering.
Not only does it reference the unique experience of Romero, but extends the concept
of anguish and suffering to those in the Americas who for economic or political
reasons have been and continue to bear crosses. For Tracy, the cross is both
the expression of pain and faith and as such becomes a powerful symbol of liberation
theology.
Bouquets of flowers
are scatted about the base of the cross, and leaning against the base are two
photographs from newspapers: one of the slain bishop, and the other of Alexander
Haig’s receiving communion from Bishop James Hickey in Washington.
In Terminal Privileges”
(pp. 31) Michael Tracy states”:
“This work was dedicated to my brothers and sisters in Central America as
they entered the horror of the eighties. Experiencing the daily madness of terror
and the insane waste of war. What happened to them as their heads were cut off,
their feet beaten, and their bones smashed was also mystically happening to all
of us. Our government supported and quietly supports today the cause of their
dark and constant pain.
The religious truths
of this war as found in “A Theology of Liberation” by Gusatavo Gutierrez,
my original source of inspiration, remain unchanged. ….
Baptism by blood then, by fire by bullets. A sacramental death, Holy Life! A
life of suffering…to find the body and blood of Christ ineffably and ironically
is our body and our blood”
In late 80s Tracy maintained a studio near Mexico City’s cathedral (Tempo
Mayor), at the heart of Aztec culture and the place once considered the center
of the most important MesoAmerican empire, that along with the Chavin of Peru.
Here Tracy he worked on “The Tempo Mayor Series” The series was concerned
with the “layering of cultures” consisting of canvases drenched in
fake blood, crosses decorated with hummingbirds and glittering sculptures reminiscent
of temples. The painting from the series –paint soaked cloth parallels the
staining technique of Rothko, but also alludes to the way blood seeps into fabric
and stays-memory embedded into our realities.
In ” Altar de los Olvidados “(Altar of the Forgotten Ones), l989 Tracy
commissioned local Mexican workers to construct a small wooden altar in the mound-like
shape of an Aztec temple.
With a latticework
base the pyramid shaped wooden structure was gilded with gold leaf, containing
fragrance white dead flowers in its interior. Essentially, Its exterior was a
scaffold for long braids of dark hair, which Mexican women have sold in order
to support their families. Tracy here references the concept of buying and selling;
sacrificing and owning one’s cultures a concept for people of the Hispanola
is the sphere of commodification and tourism. In buying the hair from the women
Tracy has given them a temporary reprieve from certain hardship. However, John
Yau suggest that by doing so he (Tracy) has implicated himself as both the bearer
of placebos and an agent of oppression. By incorporating the hair into his work,
Tracy attempts to redeem himself by being a witness. By placing the work in a
gallery, he implicates both the detached viewer and the willing consumer (collector).
In Michael Tracy’s art there is no easy way out. The work has also been
interpreted as homage to all those anonymous heroes that lost their scalps in
the sacred Aztec wars.
Two related woks can be compared to this work An altar is comprised of large
golden pieces with mysterious ponds of green, brown and dirty magenta, crowned
with embossed tin halos in the manner of l8th century Mexican saints, and “Smoking
Mirror” (the tile refers to the Aztec god Texacatlipoca) which consists
of a long series of panels richly painted in gold and black acrylic.
“Altar of
the Hummingbird”, reference to an instance in which one of the tiny creatures
flew into Tracy’s house and died there as well as the practice in Mexico
of keeping the dead bodies of these birds as talismans. The pyramid shape of
these small altar objects is derived from the exterior staircases leading to
Templo de Valenciana de San Cayetano near Tracy’s studio in Mexico. Many
are covered with straw and are all spray painted gold.
Other noteworthy works from this period include “Cruz: la pasion” a
sculptural work arranged in a mosaic pattern that was put together from fragments
as the artist moved southward on a trip to Mexico. The work thus became suggestive
of aspects of traditional pilgrimages of Mexican saints. Installed in Mexico
City it was finally lavishly skirted with thousands of flowers. “Stations
of the Cross: To Latin America” an early work consisted of eight large canvases.
“Untitled” a stellar work dedicated to the men of Mexico is a tall,
slender gold cross, glass-covered piece, filled with hundreds of dead hummingbirds.
The symbolism here is both evocative and mysterious. Traditionally hummingbird’s
stand for love in Mexico: love between humans. Fused with the cross, it becomes
a dedication for the love of God.
In a sculpture
entitled:” Triptico Para Los Desparecidos” (Triptych for the Disappeared
Ones), l982-l983, Tracy addresses the issue of injustice in a religious context.
In the work, he pays tribute to the thousands of people in El Salvador who have
been kidnapped by death squads and are often never to be found. Traditionally,
the triptych is found on an altar in order to depict scenes from the life of
Christ- especially his nativity, death, and resurrection. In Tracy’s Triptico,
the three –panel form heavily encrusted with congealed acrylic paint is
riddled with knives, swords, and a machete. A clump of human hair hangs from
the bottom of the work. Shards of glass and broken stemware are found in the
work, equally thee are incorporated within the object burlap sacks of knitting
needles. Without even the present of corpses, the viewer is invited to imagine
the actual violence created by the reality of the elements that comprise the
final artwork. More importantly, Tracy has use the triptych format to suggest
a human being with arms extended parallel the notion of the crucifixion complete
with its suggestions of faith and courage.
Still, Michael Tracy’s installation remains some of his l most power works:
In an installation
for the San Francisco Artspace Galley entitled, “Mirror of Justice/House
of Gold” Tracy explored themes of perseverance, death, triumph, and rebirth.
There were only two works in the entire space –a fourteen –foot pre-Columbian
pyramid of straw on a gold leaf, and latticework supporting structure and an
eighteen-foot-by sixty-foot wall of living white flowers. While the installation
appeared rather somber it clearly expressed Tracy’s themes. Upon entering
the galley, the viewer ‘s senses immediately activated by the smell of straw
and flowers. Because of its scale the work completely envelops the viewer. The
irony of the work is that one senses the work is active and living and on the
other dying – one could see it and smell it. As the flowers were not in
water, the smell was intensified and unavoidable. Over the duration of the installation
the work remained in a constant state of change. The white changed to light beige
parchment and as the flowers shriveled. New patterns emerged on the wall of wire
mesh supporting the flowers, alternatively undermining the stability of the pyramid.
Clearly underling Tracy’s notion’s humble material of straw and flowers
was the strength and radiance of the pyramid- which can be extended to reference
the entire concept of Meso-American empires.
For “ Sanatuarios
“ an installation Michael Tracy turned the exhibition space into a chapel.
He had the main gallery’s high walls painted dark gray and deployed along
them, and on bases throughout the room, a large selection of ritual objects he
had been making over a course of years: thick stumpy cruciform assemblages, crepuscular
shrines and paintings, and iridescent bas-reliefs panels. These momento mori
contrasted with the cool, clean lines of wooden grillwork partitions and furnishings-including
a couple of large chairs and a confessional –all built to specifications
by Mexican craftsmen.
Tracy dedicated
the chapel to the war dead of Nicaragua and El Salvador and the Mexican mojados
(wetback) traversing the border near San Ygnacio, Texas where he lives. Twice
the installation was used to enact the Roman Catholic Mass: once for the local
community, and again for healing the AIDS epidemic.
At the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Tracy created an astonishing installation-
“Chapel for the Mexican War Streets” The multi-part installation occupied
an entire floor of the art center. Constructed to suggest the interior of a chapel,
the installation is complete with an apse, nave, transept, and vestry. Tracy
transformed the space into a darkened sanctuary filled with the aroma of flowers,
candles and incense. Divided into a central chapel and a number of smaller galleries.
The project included paintings, works on paper, cruciform sculptures, abstract
icons, bronzes, furniture, costumes, wooden screens, photographs, and numerous
candles, copal incense and the remnants of thousands of flowers. The space was
suffused with orchestrated light and symphonic sound laments of the contemporary
Polish composer Henryk Gorecki.
Tracy ‘s ecclesiastical
layout was designed to serve a variety of liturgical needs, from private meditation
to communal celebration. The principal public chamber of the installation, the
chapel, concluded an architectural vista with a monumental ceremonial screen,
its three panels painted with metallic pigment and acrylic medium. Dense as sculpted
bronze, this triptych ‘s highly worked surfaces were echoed in a group of
large scale paintings leaning against one wall, and in suite of framed collages
lining the opposite wall, each of which represented a moment in the Christian
sacrificial narrative. The fourteen frames containing heavily encrusted, darkly
stained paper symbolically evoke Christ’s agony and sacrifice in the Stations
of the Cross.
The installation contained a number of side chapels and vestries with wooden
grill –work walls. In the vestry, ceremonial garments hung next to a curtain
of desiccated flowers and a baroque-like framed icon pierced with machetes. In
front of the icon was a rustic processional cross with coronas of thorns and
several of the massive bronze candlesticks that were placed throughout the installation.
Flowers in various stages of freshness and decay added their scent to that of
copal and beeswax candles stacked in a nearby antechamber.
Behind locks and
chain, several crypt-like storerooms were filled with Tracy’s earlier work,
some of it still wrapped, and others crated completed with international exhibition
history. Other rooms held piles of chairs, tables massed with sculpture, candelabra,
fabrics and weavings, architectural maquettes of previous chapels and installations,
and a host of Mexican artifacts. At the far end of one storeroom where side steps
appear to lead to some hidden upper chamber, a painted screen exploded with an
intense theatrical light, throwing deep shadows against a blood red wall. Here,
Tracy uses communion vessels to evoke the process of transubstantiation of bread
and wine into flesh and blood during the Mass. A reliquary pierced with hundred
machetes refers to the pain of martyrdom, which provides an alembic to the achievement
of grace. This symbolism the work has been interpreted as evocative of one of
Tracy’s central belief-the transformation of the human into something holy
through rituals of violence.
In the middle of
all of this a single scarp of paper taken from the front page of a tabloid showing
color photographs of “celebrated” couples and a headline that reads
in part. “ …Call it quits”. Edward Leffingwell in interpreting
this final gesture wonder if this is Tracy signature to the piece or whether
it a sign of his abandoning art-making for film. In the complex installation
Tracy explores the ritual aspects of religion as alchemy in relation to the sacred
and the human body.
Approached by the
Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas, Tracy was asked to help design a chapel for
the basement of the Emmanuel Chapel for the Cathedral of Corpus Christi in collaboration
with architect James Rome. Tracy produced a space filled with colors of natural
wood and rose-colored carpeting. The dominant artwork of the room is a large
abstract gold triptych reredos by Tracy that stands behind the altar. With its
lobed central panel, and its half –lobed side panels, this triptych literally
seems to emulate the praying gesture of the priest and to embrace both the altar
and the worshipping community—thus it becomes a living icon of the eucharistic
experience.
Michael Tracy’s
sculpture and installation evolved on his own terms continuously at odds with
current “isms”. His work explores the point where the spiritual and
physical interact to propose the dynamics of practice and redemption. As John
Yau has noted is perhaps for this reason Tracy works continues to move outside
the mainstreams. Tracy refuses to us any of the accepted devices –appropriation,
kitsch, irony- to distance himself or the viewer from his ambitious and obsessive
attempt to bear witness to our realities. While a more recent generation has
taken up the issue of art and commodity, Tracy’s art has long reveal the
complex relationship between art and the commodification in ways that speak less
about art as object, but art and experiences more extended that endows the objecthood
with the potential to address conditions in daily and historical realities.
Tracy sculptures
are covered with acrylic gel and metallic powders, exposed to the Texas weather,
doused with blood and urine, interred and exhumed, incised and punctured with
pointed instruments-spikes, knives, swords, sewing needles, – hung with almost
every available votive and reliquary item, from hanks of hair to tin and brass
milagros. Tracy objects mystify and instruct. The traces of this accumulated
immolative process congeal into objects of dazzling preciosity, in which transcendence
appears hopelessly mired. They are both beautiful objected whose decodable ideographic
surface reminder us of social cruelty, and potential.
Tracy’s iconography
culminates into one operatic prayer, both noble and humble. Its primary intent
is to make the viewer sensitive to other’s people’s pain. Following
a desperate theology of liberation, his icons embody secular horror by lumping
it together with a repositioned religious mythology or as one critic has noted,
”Their project … is not so much to adorn the cross as to penetrate
it, to probe the truth beneath the veneer…” (Bill Bekson, Artforum
Intentional v.27 (Feb, 1989-pp.139-140)
Michael Tracy’s work speaks to private passion that is both earthy and sacred
at the same time. These sculptural works address the complex nature of Latin
America’s legacy. But at no time is Tracy interested in merely replicating
tradition Latin American art and architecture. Tracy creations are aimed at sacred
spaces, and re-interpretation of religious artifacts calls into question the
distinction between objects and their artistic construct.
