Artist Blas Isasi is obsessed with the history of his native Peru and what he sees as its infinite effects. For Prospect 6 (which ended last month), he leaned into his research on the subject to create an installation entitled “1,001,532 CE,” a futuristic look at how the fall of the Incan Empire continues to send ripples into the world.
“My thesis is that the conquering of Peru was of such magnitude that it changed the course of history,” said Isasi, who has an MFA from Tulane University and has put down local roots with his New Orleans-born wife and their son.
In his adopted New Orleans, Isasi has found parallels with Peruvian history. New Orleans’ relationship to slavery is akin to Peru’s themes of European colonialism and the city has been fertile ground for his explorations.
“We share this trauma,” said Isasi.
The exhibit’s 18 abstract sculptures were conceived to be interactive — with one another and with the century old former Ford Assembly Plant in Arabi where mounted. Through abstraction Isasi seeks to transcend artificial constructs imposed by humans and inspire different ways of thinking.
“There are other ways of understanding how life works,” he said.
The pieces, intended to suggest post-human-existence life forms, have an organic quality. There are sinewy branch-like loops with no beginning and no end and Isasi draws on Andean traditions by incorporating human features such as teeth and hair. But the works are also intended to blur the line between the natural and the man-made.
Set against the historic industrial shell of the vacant plant and awash in its ambient light, they also blurred lines between what is past and what is to come.
“I am trying to suggest the idea that they have been there forever,” he said.
