>>Review of MADA:Tumbling Chairs at Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, 1994<<

Museum of American Democratic Art:
Tumbling Chairs
Center for the Fine Arts, Miami

“…in the CFA lobby, Miamian Cesar Trasobares has installed Museum of American Democratic Art: Tumbling Chairs, which poses this question: Do American museums represent another sort of "fragile ecology"? Taking the canvas directors chair as his metaphor, Trasobares (a keynote speaker at Thursday's opening of the ninth conference of the National Association of Artists' Organizations) suggests that museums have become the locus of colliding forces, interests and agendas. He piles up 60 chairs in a pyramid, their backs identifying the seat of power each represents, with "DlRECTOR: Museum Marketing" at the top and these elsewhere in the pile -- "CURATOR: Blue Chip Artists," "WOOER: Artists' Estates," "TRUSTEE: Latino Powerhouse," "CONSULTANT: Global Esthetics" and even "V.P.: No Food, No Drink." The seats of every chair are screened with the M.A.D.A. logo in Gothic script, including the phrase "showcasing the gorgeous mosaic of our cultural fabric." Remind me never to use any of those words again.”

Helen Kohen, reviewing the exhibition, Fragile Ecologies and Trasobares’ installation
The Miami Herald, 1 May 1994.




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