By Chris Hoff
The skin found on the tips of our fingers, is known as friction skin. Left behind fingerprints are not visible to the naked eye so they must be made visible in some way. This is the utility of fingerprint powder, it makes the invisible, visible.
In the new show at CREAR Studio titled Detain & Displace. The powerful work of Alberto Lule makes use of the medium used against him, fingerprint powder, and makes the invisible, visible as well. To great effect.
For example, in Investigation #24, the most recently made artwork and most powerful work in the show, Lule details how his whole body, because of his contact with the justice system, has become friction skin. Made by covering his body in fingerprint powder then performing all the positions he was made to assume by law enforcement and prison guards, Investigation #24 is a haunting marking of power. CREAR Studio Director Sarah Rafael Garcia told me that Lule often does these investigations privately, but during the run of the Detain & Displace there will be two opportunities to see live performances by Lule.
Lule also does the reverse move and makes the visible, invisible. In the work titled Am I Truly Free, he details how the carceral state (power) makes one invisible. He does this by showing us how identity (his) is totalized then negated. First through description, then categorizing, then erasure, ending with no trace of Lule left to be found, other than a rap sheet.
The most hopeful work/s in the show is a series of prison readymades. Wherever there is power, there is resistance. In the readymade installation Lule documents these resistances. Sometimes resistance comes in small acts, like the miniscule Kite shown under plexiglass that is used to pass messages in prison. Resistance can also take more threatening forms as shown by the Shank placed directly underneath. Hopeful? Well let’s be real. Often oppressive systems remove any agency to be anti-violence. The prison system being one. These series of readymades are a testament to possible responses, and creativity, in the face of overwhelming power.
In Detain & Displace Alberto Lule makes visible the damage carried out by the prison industrial complex. The whole show incriminates the incriminator. I’m hesitant to include in this review that Alberto Lule is a formerly incarcerated artist, as it might collude with the practices his work confronts. Practices of identity closure, power, and how certain systems, like the California carceral state, shapes identities, and possibilities. But it is his actual lived experience that makes this show so much more than any critique an outsider might attempt of these same systems.
Detain & Displace runs through October 20th at CREAR Studio and will future two live performances starting at 7:30pm during the 1st Saturday art walks of September and October.
