Elena Del Rivero-Home Suite

Yesterday I visited the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. If you have never been, you must go (now!). The space itself is beautiful with gallery walls painted in fully saturated hues in a color palette worth consideration as art itself. Currently the Corcoran is displaying the work of Elena Del Rivero, who was born in Valencia, Spain but currently lives and works in New York City. Home Suite is the collection of two major works, [Swit:t] Home and [Swit:t] Home: A Chant. According to Del Rivero, [Swit:t] Home is "the story of a year." She began the series in July of 2000 in her studio/home laying twenty large sheets of handmade paper on the floor and leaving traces of her daily life--footprints, food crumbs, fingerprints, and stains. After six months, she transformed the sheets into a room-sized installation which was the actual space of her home. The culmination ended in five giant Dishcloths, composed of 20 sewn-together sheets of paper that are currently on display at the Corcoran.

The details of her year are also on display in an encased Reference Library displaying a calendar, card catalogue, box of hair, scrapbook, and other items. However, this evidence of the artist's daily life during those months only gives a glimpse into her existence. As the Corcoran writes, "stains on the paper record the chamomile tea Del Rivero made for breakfast and spilled on the way from the kitchen to her desk, but not the phone call from a friend that caused the momentary distraction."

The second part of Home Suite, [Swit:t] Home: A Chant was the artist's creation after the incidents of 9/11 wrecked her studio/home which was located across the street from the World Trade Center. She returned home to find her windows broken and every surface covered with ash and debris. In an attempt to make sense of the situation, Del Rivero spent the time after the tragedy sifting through and collecting over 3,000 items including cancelled checks, letters, legal briefs, postcards, menus, etc that had found their way into her home. Over the next five years, Del Rivero spent hours cleaning, cataloguing, and hand-sewing each item onto rolls of cotton mesh. Currently installed at the Corcoran, the "cascade of paper" is more than five hundred feet long and truly awe-inspiring.

[Swit:t] Home is on view through September 21, 2008 and [Swit:t] Home: A Chant is on view through November 16, 2008.

All photos: Elena Del Rivero Home Suite, The Corcoran Gallery of Art