“Project Atrium” at the Museum of Contemporary Art was conceived as a way to exhibit art in a new way for Jacksonville.
The three-story-tall space at the top of the stairs in the lobby offers an unusual setting, which was first used for photographer Melanie Pullen’s collection of vintage Los Angeles crime scenes rendered in high-fashion style.
The second installation in the series is a sculpture by Los Angeles artist Gustavo Godoy.
“Empty Altar/Empty Throne” is a new direction for an art exhibit in Jacksonville in that it’s a large-scale sculpture commissioned for the exhibit.
Godoy’s work also breaks ground by defying the traditional prohibition against touching an object in an exhibit. The viewer is invited, in fact encouraged, to climb into the sculpture and experience it from the inside.
“I think artists must try to make people reconsider what they know in their time and space,” he said.
“My challenge is to get people engaged in the experience at their level.”
Godoy earned an undergraduate degree in studio art at the University of California Santa Barbara, then studied architecture and urban design at UCLA before receiving a master’s degree in fine art from Vermont College.
His interest in the techniques that would lead to his style in sculpture began many years before he ever went to college, however.
Godoy said he didn’t have a desire for a career in art from an early age, but was influenced by his father, an architect who always had a sketchbook handy for drawing caricatures and family portraits.
A big part of Godoy’s early influence was visiting construction sites with his father.
“I really enjoyed watching the framework of a building rising up, but it ruined it for me when they covered up the skeleton with walls. I was more interested in how the things were made,” said Godoy.
“My work is about construction – physical construction and the construction of ideas,” he said.
The sculpture is about belief systems, said Godoy, and how, when an object is put on a pedestal, it becomes an idol, worshiped both for its artistic value and its monetary value.
The value of “Empty Altar/Empty Throne” won’t become clear until Saturday when the exhibit opens to the public and the public has the opportunity to experience it inside and out.
“Until this object is installed in the museum and people validate it, it’s only a pile of wood,” said Godoy.
At 2 p.m. Saturday in the MOCA Theater, Godoy will present a talk about his work in general and the Project Atrium installation in particular.
The talk is free with membership or museum admission.
For more information about the museum and its exhibits, visit www.mocajacksonville.org.
356-2466