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| "Badge of Honor," 1995. At the Newark Museum, Newark, NJ. Mixed media, dimensions variable. |
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“Badge of Honor”
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In Pepón Osorio's
"Badge of Honor," two fabricated rooms become sites for a healing
dialogue between an estranged father and son. Focusing on the life
experiences of the incarcerated Nelson Sr. and his 15-year-old son
Nelson Jr., the installation draws it's subject matter from a family
that - like many families today - must weather trauma, distance,
and cultural differences between parents and children. The two rooms
are as visually different from one another as can be. The father's
room is marked by a row of tight
bars, behind which are only the most basic of items: a
bench, a bucket, family photos, a pair of shoes, and some clothes.
Starkly lit and exceptionally neat, the room is an exaggerated,
highly theatrical portrayal of a jail cell. Across the adjoining
wall is Nelson Jr's teenage bedroom, exploding with color and photographic
images. In this environment, family photos are so completely incorporated
into the decor that it's nearly impossible to pick them out from
commercial products. With sports
trading cards pieced together to produce wallpaper, a line of
sneakers running the length of entire wall, and a mirrored floor
which doubles the appearance of everything, Nelson Jr.'s room is
a vision of consumer society through the eyes of youth. Parallel
experiences despite their obvious physical differences, each room
stages a heightened, dreamlike world that is the antithesis of the
other. Staggering in its visual excess, the son's room is a vivid
fantasy world where one might retreat to deny the grim reality of
a family in crisis.
While the viewer is prohibited from entering either tableau, he
or she is afforded access to a highly emotional conversation unfolding
on opposite walls. The parallel rooms are stages for a twenty-two
minute synchronized video conversation between father and son. Over
the course of the work, Nelson Sr. and Jr. talk to one another,
recounting memories, dreams, and disappointments. We continue to
listen as the conversation becomes more and more heartfelt, sympathizing
with the efforts of father and son to keep the family intact despite
hardship. If there is any glimmer of hope that the family will persevere
it is communicated metaphorically in the layout of Osorio's installation.
The father's jail cell and the son's bedroom share a common wall.
While this wall is also the thing that separates them, it is nevertheless
a common denominator made possible by Osorio's particular brand
of magical realism. The occasion of Osorio's installation provides
an opportunity for a stronger bond between father and son. While
separated by space and time, Nelson Sr. and Jr. share the space
of Osorio's video installation and their experience of working with
the artist. An aesthetic continuation of Osorio's former career
as a social worker in New York City, "Badge of Honor" is as much
a work for viewer's who encounter it as it is a common ground for
the father and son who have made it possible. Fantastical in appearance
and yet gritty for the way in which it deals with difficult subject
matter and the lives of real people, "Badge of Honor" is a powerful
allegory of contemporary family life. |
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