Umbrellas

My first installations were not tape figures. They were umbrella frames. In 2003 I was living two blocks from Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, and the beach umbrella was the repeating object. I had a broken one. I stripped the cloth off and took the center pole out. The spoke mechanism still worked, and outward it looked like a spider bracing itself, upright in a more natural position. The first were installed in Rio at Arpoador. Later they went into the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, and onto a basketball court. These are toys. They are set up and taken away. The Reflecting Pool was an easy temporary installation in a high-traffic zone, the frames reading as metal water spiders. A National Mall officer asked what I was doing. I said I was making a photograph and it would be over in a minute. She said to hurry up. The advantage a sculpture has over wall art is that it remains your property when you are near it, and litter when you are not.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Washington, DC

Washington, DC

Annandale, VA