A tree rising in the Colombian capital might not, under most circumstances, make the news, unless it is constructed precisely, inch by inch, by the words, which make up classifieds, obituaries, daily events and feature stories. During the last three months, Bogotá born sculptor and visual artist, Miler Lagos, has embarked on an epic undertaking, and one which he cannot complete singlehandedly as it has required more than 20 tones of used newsprint, and the patient collaboration of more than 600 helpers.
The giant Ceiba tree which grows layer upon layer in the Art Museum of Bogotá’s National University campus, has been one of the most challenging artistic undertakings in the enigmatic career of Miler Lagos; an artist, whose reputation overseas is well known amongst gallery goers of cultural hotspots such as New York, Santiago, Toronto and Mexico City.
Admired in his native country for installations which employ everyday objects, as well as photographs to transmit dimensions of space within space, Lagos’s tree breaks the mold in that it is the centerpiece of a collective exhibition entitled ‘Selva Cosmopolítica (Cos- mopolitical Forest), curated by Spaniard María Bélen Sáez and joining at its roots-literally and visually – the works of other well-known artists inspired by both the “natural” and ‘botanical,” such as Míguel Angel Rojas, Delcy Morelos and Ursula Biemann.
Surrounded by four stark walls of his Alma Mater, Lagos pulls up a bench next to the base of his rising Ceiba tree, constructed by sets of paper blocks, each one categorically numbered and assembled to trick the eye into believing that it is a structure unto itself, hauled in from Amazon, and placed at the heart of the urban jungle.
Lagos’ tree is one of current histories, as the compressed newsprint can be thumbed through by the visitor to this installation, each page printed with the four essential inks of printing presses from around the world.
In this fantastical structure there are pages from Colombia’s leading dailies, the independent press, the Sunday section of the New York Times, salmon pages from discarded Financial Times, and even several back issues of the newspaper you hold in your hands. The sculpture skims the roof of the Art Museum, like a guardian of the printed word, and a direct reference to the indigenous cultures, which hold the Ceiba to be sacred; and a living entity, which ‘transmits’ above the canopy of others, as an antenna, the plight of the forest. To fell a Ceiba is to cut the communication between the earthly and the divine. Lago’s tree holds the weight of the world’s words. Within its trunk are wire reports from the front lines of Syria, the disappearance of a Malaysian airliner, interviews with global leaders. The tree will last as long as the paper remains intact.
Born in 1973, Lagos came to art through Mechanical Engineering. Fascinated by the mechanical working of things and “obsessed by art,” he enrolled in 1997 at the National University’s Art Faculty and was received immediately. “My father stopped talking to me for three years,” remarks a jovial Lagos. To become an artist was the “worst catastrophe he could ever imagine.” As the interview proceeds, Lagos’ father, dressed in a blue dun- garee, oversees as chief structural engineer the hidden “forces” at work in his son’s non-fictional tree.
Attempting to make a clean break with the “mechanics of his past,” Lagos, as a student of art, made his first public installation in one of Bogotá’s most visited spaces, disappear. Under the title ‘Columbas: Palomas Mensajeras,’ the artist constructed on the cobblestones of the emblematic Plaza de Bolívar an 18 meter x 18 meter pre-Columbian figure made with dried rice and corn kernels. Hundreds of pigeons descended on the art piece, devouring the golden ‘Tunjo’ in minutes. “I wanted to challenge how our Colombian identity works,” states Lagos. “At the cultural epicenter of this country, the traces of our Chibcha heritage were non-existent. The performance by the pigeons evoked the evaporation of our past.”
At the heart of Lago’s early work is the fragile relationship which exists between culture and identity. Using natural ingredients such as clay and everyday objects, his works began to challenge preexisting concepts as to what is kitch in culture and what we assume as “art.” In his ‘Nivel Zen’ (2003), a set of silver plated party balloons appear to defy gravity, yet are constructed from concrete and molded metal.
The weight of culture evolves into a study of time and works which begin to use paper,as both medium and message. “From the moment we are born, we are validated by paper,” remarks Lagos. “From a birth certificate to a death notice – and in everything we consume – there’s paper. It has a major responsibility in the construction of our identity.”
Intrigued by tree rings and the time they tell, Lagos began to work with intensity with a derivative of wood – paper – and as a direct reference to the “implicit past” of passing on knowledge, ideas, even faith, thanks to the Gutenberg press. Constructed from heavy European oak, this machine “bears a responsibility” – as Lagos claims – in all that has followed: our universe of printed documents, and of course, the daily paper. From parched lithographs reproduced time and time again in glossy coffee tablebooks, an image can stay with us over time, and is part of time.
Lagos recalls, how the sketches of Leonardo Da Vinci’s war machines continue to be reprinted, despite the fact that they never materialised as objects. A landmark exhibition in 2007, put Lagos at the forefront of artistic circles and admired by critics and curators for his versatility as an artist. The ‘Cimientos’ show in Bogotá with chopped tree trunks constructed from individual sheets of colored paper, embarked him on a global itinerary of galleries. “My work has moved a lot in the Americas,” states this artist. “The tree project is the one, which has become the most international of them all.”
Photography is an essential medium in the works of a sculptor who is rapidly gaining stature as one of greats to watch. From the early black and white images which capture the sequence of the pigeons and their pre-Columbian feast to a recent project in the Cana- dian Artic Circle, in which Lagos was invited to capture the sweeping tundra upon which British explorer Sir John Franklin walked, Lagos, is an unassuming artist, who works from a lofty Bogotá studio, yet shies away from self publicity.
Lagos’ tree at the National University’s Art Museum lives up to the curatorial “process of creation” this entity is known for. When doors open October 1st, audiences will be able to marvel at a man-made structure where words can breathe and ink gives the bark a natural hue.
To inaugurate this botanical happening, the University has invited two shamans, Fabian Moreno and Abel Rodríguez (respected local artists from the Caqueta), to honour this “micro cos- mos of Amazonia”. The tree, in time, will travel beyond the confines of the capital to gallery spaces in New Mexico, Toronto. and Europe.
Lagos is all too aware that transporting the complete 40 tonnes of yesterday’s news will be as much of an epic undertaking as when the project first began to materialize in his subconscious. As part of an organic collective, Lago’s tree stands alone. Like the ‘Magic Seeds’ which the artist documented as they migrated along the walls of a derelict cultural space in Valparaiso’s historic district, the Ceiba will chart its own destiny: preserving in its roots the words and images of our times. And above all, the talent of an artist who can shape the weight of the world.
