[ Richard A. Lou, Border Door (1988) ]
The Chinese-Mexican-American artist was raised in San Diego and Tijuana, and began collaborating with Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo (BAW/TAF) in 1988. He executed this performative installation along the US/Mexico border between La Colonia Roma and La Colonia Alta Mira. Beginning with the construction of a framed door, the artist secured the piece in an open field constituting the site, the door swinging outward toward the United States. 134 copies of its keys hung from the doorframe, apparently offering potential border crossers a more hopeful and dignified route to the United States. Lou took to the streets after the installation of the door to hand out another 250 keys to Mexican residents of La Colonia Roma. This action introduced a personal element into the work, thereby activating it as performance rather than merely a static installation. The gesture of physically offering these keys to strangers implicated the body and consciousness of both the artist and the subject whereby this human exchange constituted the work as much as the structure of the doorway itself. Curator and scholar Constance Cortez explains that:
"[while] removing the key from its hook on the door can be understood as an act of agency, the relationship is always between an object and the participant. When accepted from a physically present fellow human being, something akin to a contract is implied: the key may or may not be used—the decision is the holder’s—but the provider of the key is witness to the act of acceptance." [1]
This seemingly simple gesture of the artist presenting keys to people in the midst of their normative activities is what extends this site-specific installation into the realm of performance. It’s significance is based on the artist’s ability to not only intervene the physical landscape, but the associated cultural fabric of the site, leaving room for participation and a multiplicity of interpretation from the community to which it speaks.
[1] Constance Cortez. “An Introduction to the work of Richard Lou” curator’s essay from the exhibition Richard A. Lou: Stories on my Back (November 1-December 15, 2012 at Texas Tech University Art Gallery, Lubbock, Texas).