art installation – Postcards from Barton Springs

Above: A place setting of “Le Point de Bascule,” an installation by the de la Torre Brothers as part of their exhibition, “Upward Mobility,” at the McNay Art Museum

An appetizing invitation from the de la Torre Brothers you can’t refuse? First entering the McNay’s gallery containing their almost-all-media dinner-party installation, “Le Point de Bascule,” you feel as though the guests must have stepped away from the table for a smoke on the patio after a wildly fabulous meal. Taxidermy around the walls make it feel oddly at home in big-game-hunting Texas.

We’re repulsed by this opulence. But we’re also thinking: ‘God, I wish I’d been invited to this party.’”

Artist Einar de la Torre, interviwed by Patricia Escarcega for an article in The New York Times

Above: The dining room table in “Le Point de Bascule,” a multimedia art installation by the de la Torre Brothers

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Artist Federico Guzman transforms the 1887 Palacio de Cristal in the middle of Retiro Park into a prism of patterns and colors imported from the Sahara. His installation, Tuiza, is framed by an enormous Bedouin tent, a khaima, designed to spark interactions among people of diverse backgrounds in an hospitable setting.

The sides of his tent are formed with melhfas, traditional costumes worn by women of the Sahara. Women from the refugee camp of Bokhador worked with the artist directly to design and dye the fabrics.

The geometric patterns of the khaima and the more freestyle patterns of the melhfas explode kaleidoscopically when reflected in the glass with park surroundings and patterns and shadows created by the iron framework of the Crystal Palace.