As the viewer enters Instalación por Terence Gower from the upper doorway of Gonzalo Fonseca’s 1968 sculpture Torre de los Vientos, they see the messy, upper side of a dropped ceiling. Descending the built-in stairs or entering through the lower doorway the viewer finds the pristine, well-illuminated main part of the installation: a low-ceilinged fluorescent-lit room containing Fonseca’s original built-in furniture. This room is reminiscent of offices in the city’s historical neighbourhoods where cheap paneling and dropped ceilings are used to carve space out of grand historical interiors. The word used for the work’s title instalación is a term for electrical or other construction work (a dropped ceiling, for instance) but has acquired a second meaning with the advent of “installation art” in Mexico.
Documentation: Billboard view; view through lower entrance; view from upper entrance
Terence Gower, 1998
Dropped ceiling (aluminium armature with acoustic panels), flourecent lights, cables, installed inside Gonzalo Fonseca’s 1968 sculpture Torre de los Vientos.
Dropped ceiling diameter: 7.3 metres
Curator: Pedro Reyes
Photography: Rafael Ortega
