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El Chandelier

Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery

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Object Details

Artist
Pepón Osorio, born Santurce, Puerto Rico 1955
Gallery Label
Osorio created El Chandelier for a performance piece that explored the life of a Puerto Rican woman living in New York. The fixture is encrusted with doll babies, toy bowling pins, palm trees, plastic animals, and sculptures of saints—the cheap, brightly colored decorations called chucherías that appear in “Nuyorican” households.
El Chandelier is dazzling and light hearted, but the illusion of abundance masks the realities of life in poor urban communities. Osorio saw this kind of making-do aesthetic—creating something wonderful out of nothing—in the apartments he visited when he worked as a social worker. El Chandelier, with its mixed Spanish and English title, suggests the lives of people who find themselves moving between two cultures, making a feast for the eye as a compensation.
Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2011
Exhibition Label
When Osorio worked as a social worker in New York City he often saw elaborate chandeliers hanging in humble apartment homes. This experience led him to appreciate the meaning behind buying tchotchkes and expensive-looking objects. The plastic palm trees, coquis (iconic Puerto Rican frogs), dominos, and tassels that adorn his light source suggest coping mechanisms in the face of adversity and migration. Sculptures of Catholic saints and variously complexioned dolls reference Afro-Caribbean spiritual systems and racial hierarchies. Spanish and English mingle in the work’s title, conjuring a space between cultures and realities.
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, 2013
Credit Line
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program
Copyright
© 1988, Pepón Osorio
1988
Object number
1995.40
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Type
Decorative Arts-Furniture
Medium
functional metal and glass chandelier with plastic toys and figurines, glass crystals, and other objects
Dimensions
60 7/8 x 42 in. (154.6 x 106.7 cm) diam.
See more items in
Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
Department
Decorative Arts
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Topic
Object\toy\doll
Object\furniture\lamp
Record ID
saam_1995.40
Metadata Usage (text)
Not determined
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk7dd488741-820f-4f0e-b7b7-0cfcc8673e3e

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