Allora & Calzadilla: Specters of Noon
A book-length exploration of Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla’s inspiration, production, and orchestration of seven conceptual works crafted for the Menil Collection’s exhibition Allora & Calzadilla: Specters of Noon. The Puerto-Rico based artists considered the Menil’s Surrealist holdings, the legacy of colonial politics in the Caribbean, the politics of power production, and the conditions of environmental instability—threads that converge around the idea of solar noon, when the day drags and inertia reigns.
The book contains insightful essays by the exhibition’s curator, Michelle White, and art historian and poet Roberto Tejada as well as contributions on the individual artworks by Julie Ault, Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Daniel Immerwahr, Gerardo Mosquera, Molly Nesbit, Mari Carmen Ramírez, and Maria Stavrinaki, and by David Lang on his musical score. The dichotomy of light and dark can be seen in the carefully crafted design by Michael Worthington, and the installation is illustrated with sumptuous photography by Fredrik Nilsen. To complement the commissioned writings, the publication also includes texts that inspired the artists, writings and images by such varied authors as Roger Caillois, a fourth-century ascetic monk, poet Aimé Césaire, and the United States Congress (the Guano Islands Act of 1856).
