Conflicts & War

Katonah Museum of Art

Enticing visitors with a rhythm of pulsating color, Pietro Costa’s seven cylinders sited under the Norwegian spruce trees in the Marilyn M. Simpson Sculpture Garden create an artificial copse of neon and fiberglass. The garden, already a place of natural beauty, is enhanced by Costa’s man-made elements. The installation does not resonate with violence, as its title would suggest. Rather, Costa uses text and industrial materials to illuminate problems of perception and identity that exist at the very core of conflict.

Contained within each cylinder is a single word spelled in neon light. The words are connected to dimmers, which cause them to glow brightly and then fade out. There is a hypnotic syncopation in the on/off dichotomy of the work. Just as light can be either revealing or blinding, words can be precise or ambivalent, and conflict can be justified or immoral. The power of Costa’s cylinders resides in the indefinable space between the “on” and “off,” when a slippage of meaning and language occurs. Costa’s words are in constant flux both physically and metaphorically. They are shifting modifiers, which take on different meanings depending upon context and point of view.

Six of the words relate in pairs: I/You, His/Hers, and Us/Them. The I/You coupling suggests issues of identity and how we perceive others and ourselves. His/Hers connotes ownership, whether of tangible objects, religious beliefs, or political opinions. Us/Them calls attention to the distinction between people, races, religions, genders, and ethnicities.

Perhaps more than any other combination, this word pairing is the most passionately divisive as it implies prejudice and social discord. Using simple words, none containing more than four letters, Costa explores the most visceral causes of human conflict. His installation prompts viewers to reflect upon issues of personal identification—whom do we define as “us” and “them”—and questions whether there really is a distinction.

The seventh and final cylinder contains the word God. With this word, all earthly constraints are relegated to a higher realm.