Cildo Meireles, Missão/Missões (How to Build Cathedrals), 1987, approximately 600.000 coins, 800 communion wafers, 2000 bones, 80 paving stones and black fabric. 93” x 20’ x 20’. Image courtesy the Tate Modern, seen at The Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX.
There is something quite magical about this work in person that can't be captured in the many many photographs that have been taken of it. The coins in the bottom (pennies, in its installation at The Blanton) glow in the warm light. The communion wafers seem to balance magically. The bones on the ceiling don't look like bones, but like glowing marble or paper lanterns. The translucent black fabric creates an intimate atmosphere and enhances the magical glow.
In some ways this might be a criticism of the piece, that it aestheticizes a history of pain and violence of the colonization of Latin America. But the beauty adds to the complexity of the work, and shows how the elements of colonization can appeal even as they destroy.
