Artist Spotlight

Juan Carlos Zaldívar

Name: Juan Carlos Zaldívar

City: Miami Beach

Birthplace: Holguín, Cuba

Artistic Medium: Video, sound and participatory art

How did you get started?
My curriculum vitae was in sound design, film and performance. I have had a prolific career as a sound designer for films. I taught for three semesters at NYU's undergraduate film program and directed several films along the way. Shortly after 9-11, however, something fundamental shifted for me. I moved to Miami to be near my family and that's when my art projects began to flourish. I still consult and do TV work once in a while, but my art gives me all the satisfaction of filmmaking without having to wait two years to bring a work to fruition.

Who or what are your influences?
I have always been fascinated by conceptual art. Anything that deconstructs a process. The pranks of Dalí and Buñuel as Dadaists in the 1920's were brilliant. Like when they said they were going to throw a brick through Macy's window and they published a time for the event in the papers and the media went crazy to cover it and then they never showed up. I am also deeply influenced by Butoh dance and by film animation (both of which deconstruct movement and time, respectively) I am kindred to the work of Sankai Juku and The Brothers Quay. I am also influenced by the surrealists, in particular Jean Cocteau.

More recently, I am heavily influenced by physics and that threshold where physics meets spirituality, which is drawing closer in this century. I keep re-reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. I am interested in unseen forces, like light, sound and magnetism. The things that move us in unseen ways.

What inspires your work?
I get inspired by mundane things. Little things that we can re-discover over and over.  I think shadows are fascinating, for instance. The shadow of a fence or a leaf, or a flower. A streak of dusty light in a dark room.  The smell of wet earth. These things inspire me.   Mostly, though, it's the way people interact with art that fascinates me. I used to sit at the Met in New York and watch people looking at the art. Their expression changes. Some withdraw. Some become curious children again. I always try to incorporate that into my art. I want people to be intrigued and to explore. I love it when a piece moves the viewer to invest at least a moment on it that way.

How does Miami/South Florida influence your work?
I am happy here. I feel safe here. I love the dramatic weather and the sea that instantly puts my worries into perspective. There is an air of possibility if you are an artist in Miami now. I remember that from the East Village in the 1980's and Williamsburg and DUMBO in the 1990's. It's exciting. More importantly, though, my family is here.

How would you describe your work?
I'd like to think of it as participatory. Some of it is interactive, but not all of it. They are art installations.

What has been the most unusual reaction to your work from the public?
I did a piece for my best friend's wedding last June. It hung in a doorway and it featured a life size video projection of her and the groom greeting in slow motion. You'd have to walk through it to enter the room. I loved watching people wave hello to the images as if they were real and then being surprised as they passed the curtain and realized that the real people were not really there.

My favorite, though, is when children see "Palingenesis" projected onto the liquid in the barrel. Adults are intrigued but only a few ask how it's done... children, however, are the only ones who always dare to touch it and they tremble when their arm goes through into what they thought was a solid. It makes me smile because they run away, startled, but they always come back and they bring an adult to show them.

What would you like to achieve as an artist?
I want my images (or the experience of the viewers' interaction) to stay with them. I want to make work that will haunt us like a beautiful dream that holds some strange meaning which we must decipher. I want to integrate them. I want them to remember.

Upcoming shows:
Deluxe Arts Gallery
September 29-30
6 p.m. to 11 p.m.  (By appointment during the week)
By appointment at the gallery until October 3
2051 NW 2nd Avenue, Miami 786-200-4971

Opening night reception Friday September 29, 7-11 p.m.
HopperTeam@aol.com

Where is your work available?
www.PhonographFilms.com/Art_Section.html

"Palingenesis" (video/sound installation) video, sound, water, resin bucket, pigment and drop maker Video is projected on liquid with an intermittent drop disturbing the image from above. Loop rt: 6 minutes   "Blind Trust" An interactive Polaroid installation where visitors are asked to pose for nude, abstract photographs in a private studio and become part of a temporary, anonymous photo exhibit. Participants keep ownership of the original photographs.   "String doorway (a series)" Silent video installation on linen panels.

If you are an artist and would like to be a part of Artist Spotlight, contact Mary Damiano at StarrWriter2000@aol.com