white-wash

wilfredo prieto, dimunitive and speaking through a middle-aged translator, giggles about his conceptual colour-free installation: a library of 6000 black, white-bound books, individualized, leather-bound, paper-back, perhaps coyly alphabetical even, with imaginary white author names (not White, although that question surfaces)...

he says we learn from experience, not from words.

oh i beg to differ.

for the library is a space for hiding and seeking...words.

yes, yes, it is an "experience" to open a book and have strands of hair fall into your lap and the lingering perfume of another reader slip out...but is the romance not in the *words* you've both read? prieto's library is clinical, clean, cold. nothing is shared because you can leave no traces, there is no ink to bleed into your oily fingers and leave impressions of elsewhere. there are no corners for hiding. every secret is conspicuous an automatically ruined of its secret-status...

i thought it was a reno of the white cube, but nothing more clever. i longed for someplace musty.

prieto, from cuba, is currently exhibiting "Mute", a seizure-inducing disco installation, at the McMaster Museum of Art. "White Library" belongs to his representing gallery in Barcelona, Norgueras Blanchard.