Raul de Nieves’ A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder…

Mexican-born, Brooklyn-based artist Raul de Nieves’ A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder… invites us on a journey of continual transformation, asking us to explore and imagine the liminality of the material and immaterial, as well as the possibilities for a celestial landscape. Curated by Henry curator Nina Bozicnik and guest curator Risa Puleo, A window to the see… is another in a series of full-scale mixed-media arts programs characteristic of the Henry at University of Washington.

On view in the lower galleries, A window to the see… explores themes of ‘self-actualization, rebirth, renewal, and continual becoming’ through an interplay of text, mixed-media sculpture, light installation, and architectural forms. De Nieves’s visual artworks are rendered in unexpected, castoff materials, mining and melding rich cultural traditions and references.

Upon entering A window to the see…, the first thing one notices is its colour. A soft yellow fills the sprawling room like sunlight. The kaleidoscopic ‘stained glass’ infuses the room with further celebratory colour, at the same time evoking the feeling of a holy space. Made of acetate, the 21 ‘stained glass’ panels of in reality, a glimpse of infinity, in the palm of space, our roots incandescent, horses made of paper (2023) depict symbols drawn from Mexican Christian religious imagery as well as Tarot, and here de Nieves uses light as a material to emphasise themes of changeability and becoming. Beneath these symbols, steppe-like structures reminiscent of Mesoamerican pyramids invite viewers to recline and gaze skyward. Surrounding the room is a poem written by de Nieves, also named A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder…; its 21 stanzas correlate to the panels overhead.

If A window to the see… is a celestial landscape, de Nieves, partnering with exhibition designers Eric Zimmerman and Summer Li, has been thoughtful about designing this landscape in a way that encourages free-association for the viewer. Only three sculptures populate the vast space, and none of the artworks are labelled, offering the viewer the freedom to draw their own meanings.

Among these sculptures are The Gift (2023) and The Death of Everyday (2023), towering humanoid figures made of throwaway materials – beads, trinkets, costume jewellery, and fabrics, both cheap and luxe. In their stature and detail, these figures evoke galaxies and deities, ones summoned from the ghosts of fashion, craft, and punk. Shrouded in red velvet, The Gift (2023) stands at eight feet tall, its blurred ‘face’ almost sentient in its stillness, evoking questions about death, life, and the in-between.

Celebration, Mother (2023), further explores the space between the material and immaterial. Atop a plinth, human ‘remains’ are presented as a landscape of thousands of tiny bits and bobs: plastic toys, sequins, mementos, coins. Contrasting in scale with these miniatures are personal effects which suggest the hand of the artist: an empty beer bottle, a used surgical mask, and an array of de Nieves’ personal identification cards. In this juxtaposition of representation and scale, Celebration, Mother calls into question narratives of death and the afterlife, poverty and wealth, capitalism and excess.

De Nieves’ core themes of self-actualization, rebirth, renewal, and ‘continual becoming’ are broadly addressed within A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder…, an exhibition which dazzles in its presentation, content, and rich use of materiality and colour. By subverting our expectations of archetypal imagery through unexpected materials and disparate references, de Nieves invites us to explore the liminality and possibility contained in life, death, and the present day.

The Scented Word

The following perfume reviews were originally posted on Bois de Jasmin, a leading resource for scent education created by Victoria Frolova, fragrance writer and journalist.

Serge Lutens: Daim Blond
Love at first sniff – calm, lovely and more a mood than a scent, and isn’t that the goal of a good perfume? A subtle bouquet of apricot, heliotrope and musk, the hidden star in Daim Blond is leather, pale and buttery – I imagine grey leather kidskin driving gloves of impeccable cut and quality, and that association alone unleashes several others…driving a country road at twilight, as the evening bites with a crisp dampness. The gardens speeding past smell faintly of iris. I’m cloaked in Daim and the vintage leather aroma of my mid-century Jag. A fragrance which conjures new memories.

Sonoma Scent Studio: To Dream
A bouquet of heliotrope, rose and violet grounded by woods, the opening of To Dream smells much like the Lancome Trésor I loved as a teenager...yet To Dream is decidedly adult. Floral powder and fizzing stone fruit blossom into dry, parched woods, melding with the brackish smell of river grass. I imagine California perfumer Laurie Erickson taking inspiration from the native oaks and redwoods of wine country, and the local delta mud. The longer the scent wears, however, the more singular becomes the impression of the latter, which is unfortunate given the fragrance’s tenacity.

Hermes Jour d’Hermes
Radiant, luminous powder. Jour D’Hermes is a citrusy floral both spirited and subdued, with a noticeable sillage that sprawls and sparkles, but why not share this sunshine? In my personal cloud of Jour, I do feel as though I’m basking in the glow of the sun, even in the dark days of winter. This scent is all light and effervescence, with a champagne-like tartness that reminds me of Comme des Garçons’ Rhubarb, an upper for any occasion. Cheery and lighthearted, yet not young.

M. Micallef Le Parfum Denis Durand Couture
Inky citrus, smoke, pepper, leather. At its center, M. Micallef Le Parfum is pure rose, but gothic — high contrast, peppery and brambly, brooding and sulking, yet close-wearing, a skin scent of exceptional smoothness. Reminiscent of Anne Demeulemeester’s oeuvre of black tailoring, Helmut Lang revival haircuts – and for that reason, may not be entirely suited to your every day. Yet it is memorable.

Aftelier Cacao
Whiffed straight from the vial, Cacao is a boozy, decadent mélange of orange and spiced chocolate. On skin, Aftelier’s take on a familiar theme evolves into another dimension, its sensuality and comfort underpinned by a rusticness reminiscent of stone ground chocolate. While the cacao note is familiar, at no point is Aftelier’s version hackneyed; its rough-hewn succulence keeps it fresh and off-kilter. The joyride only lasts so long, though, before the confection devolves into a heady mess of jasmine flowers. The clear solution must be to procure yourself an unlimited supply of the stuff, reapply into oblivion, and let the adventure unfold anew.

Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far

The list that follows was originally inspired by Stefan Sagmeister’s list by the same name.

The irony of this list: life is messy. Life evades the neat ordering of so-called ‘rules’ into tidy lists. But I am who I am, and I like lists, so.

Secondly: change is the only constant. Much as I like a definitive list, this might be the only thing I actually know for sure. Every ‘rule’ is iterative. See #18, #33. Since its first iteration in 2008, this list has been heavily edited.

Perhaps by 2040, this list will be whittled down to just those two facts, and that will be fine. But until then:

1. Honing a self-concept is essential to create. Rarely do the self-concept and the real self align.

2. Art is an act of expression. Design is an act of service. Where is the line?

3. Everything deserves a closer look.

4. Trust, but verify.

5. Helping others helps me.

6. Dishonesty is at war with freedom.

7. The key to a good ending is knowing when to roll the credits.

8. Under capitalism, cultivating an inner world is an act of resistance. Further, all art is political.

9. Originality is a necessary delusion.

10. If you must work for anyone else, find someone with heart.

11. Consistency outweighs speed.

12. Iteration over perfection.

13. There’s enough time for what is actually important.

14. The process of creation often yields a more interesting result than the finished product. At the same time, there is a cleansing in shipping the work.

15. Inquire within.

16. Forgiveness is good, but you don’t have to forget.

17. It is okay to not be okay.

18. Writing daily breeds honesty, and in its own time, action.

19. Certainty is at odds with curiosity.

20. Everywhere I go, there I am.

21. Maps, like rules, are still subjective.

22. Reality is neutral.

23. A good idea is never done. The same goes for places, people, events. Everything can be recontextualized.

24. Perfection isn’t the golden word it used to be.

25. Words aren’t everything they used to be.

26. Love is an action.

27. Minimalism can be an act of devotion or an easy answer. Sometimes both.

28. Envy and procrastination reveal what you value and what you don’t.

29. Money can buy freedom, but freedom’s nothing much without a plan.

30. Turn soft and lovely in a lesser town whenever you have the chance.

31. Maintain a curiosity the size of Carl Sagan’s comb-over.

32. Carry your camera wherever you go.

33. Discard this list and start again.

Elsewhere

Notes from six weeks in Stockholm, 2018

A map view of the city reveals a land mass that registers nothing, but looks a bit like a human skull. What’s the difference between Vasastan and Vasastaden? Save all places of interest to a map, and admire the constellation of possibility. Tag every saved place with a multitude of labels for easy discovery: heritage, overlook, hideout.

Plan your descent into the unknown around a location of interest - whatever feels attractive, achievable, and will account for a few hours of the day. Locate the nearest green space in case of emergency. Observe the local pace, then adopt it. Resign yourself to the nearest Wayne’s Coffee, a neutral zone situated on every next city block, where one can disappear when the cracks begin to show.

Make plans, and then abandon them. For alleys, dots of light on the pavement leading to somewhere, languorous wanders through the local clock shop, probable soul mates…

When panic or idleness strike, refer to your map. With the look of someone that knows what they’re doing, stride purposefully toward your next destination. Or strike up a conversation with a character of your choosing in the nearest park. Launch into a concerted study of the city’s preferred trousers (cut, color, and wash) and make notes.

Ask yourself ‘What would Hamid do?’, Hamid being the coolest person you know.

Twice a week, give yourself a free pass to do nothing. In turn, anything you do will feel the grandest of achievements. Switch sides in your borrowed bed after binge-watching a BBC romantic dramedy front to back, now strewn in the crumbs of a million biscuits. Even nothing is something, elsewhere.

Forever desirous of

aimless walks through unfamiliar environs

bridges receding into banks of fog

a tiny harp

an unlimited vocabulary

perpetual relevance

old letters found yet unopened

the edge of mastery

polar caps

a natural expression

ornate onigiri

a bering strait crossing

a shed of one’s own

Re-entry

Washington Dulles Airport: To remain suspended within this moment, this fifteen minutes before landing, 8pm Eastern Standard Time, Indian Summer, sky this exact gradient of flat grey-purple, distant glow of city lights flickering beneath undulating clouds, Ø playing in plugged ears. To remain. On the ground, another nondescript airport. Another queue. Another destination yet. / London Heathrow Airport: The usual clinical cafeteria smell. Feels like I’ve never left, maybe. It helps that LHR hasn’t bothered to switch out its ad campaigns in over two years. The city continues its obsession with the Gill Sans typeface, continues with its eyes in train window reflections, with the everything wilting regretfully outside, with the white trainers, with the tacky adverts I managed to forget, the ceaseless humidity, with the idling and consequently the pace, with the effort being made, the throngs, the anonymity. With the usual trainbounce at Turnham Green, sailing eastward along the track toward old habits, old haunts. Even the same book in my lap. / Airports, like this city - enough content to illustrate one or two hundred lifetimes and yet nothing particularly solid to hold onto; just an image or a sentence on the verge of forming, soon to be replaced by the next haphazard revery as we round this corner / board the plane.

Aphantasia

I’ve been reading about aphantasia, or the inability to visualize mental imagery. I was surprised to learn that for those of us without any visual impairments, the ability to visualize imagery still differs greatly among us all.

When recalling a person, place or thing, some of us visualize that thing in crisp detail. Some of us imagine vague outlines. And some of us have no images at all.

What would the past be without images, where would a sense of self derive from? What is time, apart from an accumulation of these images?

It’s easy from my position to conceive of aphantasia as a loss, but I begin to wonder who bears the greater loss, really—the person with the ability to dredge up the past in all its detail, or the person who must be immersed in beauty to see it at all?

The Dizziness of Freedom

A resonant image: Marion from Wings of Desire after the circus has left town. The world and its buffet of options looms like a storm cloud. I think of decision paralysis, the ‘dizziness of freedom,’ and a couple of Andrea Zittel’s parables from These things I know for sure (2018):

1. What makes us feel liberated is not total freedom, but rather living within a set of limitations that we have created and prescribed for ourselves.

2. Things that we think are liberating can often become restrictive and things that we think of as controlling can sometimes give us a sense of comfort and security.

The vast expanse of the pandemic has illustrated that we can acclimate to and even thrive within a set of limitations that’s forced upon us. And now, we measuredly try to integrate some semblance of normality as the pandemic wanes. We lose the masks, we book the international flights, and again we have license to construct our lives piece by piece—our rules, our limitations. Yet there is that loss, that melancholia, and that anxiety that accompanies disaster’s end. We are free. We can breathe. Yet wasn’t there some earned sense of dignity to this containment, some feeling of being held, finally with everyone else? What will it be for this pandemic to be over? When all paths are available to us once more, will we be contented at long last, and will we call it freedom?

Actual Freedom

When I ascend the stone steps of—last week, Lake 22, or yesterday, Vernal Falls—I am suspended in that moment between departure and arrival, effort and ease, interrupted only by some terminated vista of lake or waterfall when the path and therefore the moment reaches its endpoint. I am in the flow state: suddenly all of my senses are on, my field of vision both widens and sharpens, the edges and contours of the forest and trail vibrate with new detail. I am at home with all things, spirit sans mind, and yet still a body, a machine purpose-built for this environment. Another thousand feet of gain towards the frozen lake or the waterfall that refracts the color of the day and this physical body is suddenly transparent and clear, inseparable from the air it breathes now, more deeply than it ever has indoors. I am made for this—the first thought, and the last thought—made for this sensation, ecstatically alive and without time, without analysis, free at last from the burden of personality.