Elena del Rivero

A drawing fallen from the sky, 2010

Installed at La Conservera, Ceutí, Spain

312 x 195 in. Colored beads, fake pearls, and sequins on floor

Photo courtesy of La Conservera and the artist 

Falling for Andromeda:                                                  Observations on the recent work of Elena del Rivero 

Wearing her jewels, Andromeda is chained to a sea cliff by her father. There she must remain until someone finds and marries her. Flying overhead, Perseus discovers, saves, and marries her. Upon her death, Andromeda is rewarded for her hardship: Athena creates her image in the northern hemisphere of the night sky near Perseus, her husband, and Cassiopeia, her mother.

In the year 964 a Persian astronomer observed a “small cloud” within the boundaries of the Andromeda constellation. By 1925, modern astronomers had determined this “small cloud” to be, not a single star like the other bright points of light demarcating Andromeda's flowing dress and chained wrists, but rather, a galaxy.

This Andromeda galaxy is what you see before you today - a swirling mass of a trillion stars, planets, cosmic dust… all falling towards the black hole at its center, the generative force of the galaxy herself. A terrible, monstrous, mysterious thing – a force of both destruction and creation – a black hole invisibly exists at the center of every galaxy, including our own Milky Way. Einstein’s own calculations predicted black holes, yet he absolutely denied the possibility of their existence, claiming them to be anathema: too terrible for nature to allow.

Within the context of Elena del Rivero’s concurrent exhibitions at La Conservera and Espacio AV, this awful force is harnessed, embraced, and transformed into a symbol of the generative force of the artist. The galaxy is what you see, just as the work of art is what you see, yet, invisibly, behind both is this creative, mysterious, insurmountable force drawing all things to it, drawing in references, materials… drawing interpretations, ideas, questions… (notice here the double play of the word “drawing”).

Here at La Conservera we see cosmic material falling towards the black hole, invisibly bound by the force of the artist’s creative energy. At Espacio AV we see feathers (though innately able to defy our earthly version of the black hole’s massive thirst) falling - perhaps falling in love - drawn by the artist’s inspiration.

Alyssa Casey