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Experience The U.S.-Mexico Border At New Blue Star Exhibit

Future Arts Research (F.A.R.), ASU, Phoenix, AZ
Broken Landscape III

A new exhibit at the Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum is getting some heated interest and the reason is probably because if its subject mater, and size. It’s not exactly something you can hang on your wall.

"The sculpture at Blue Star is approximately 70 ft. long," said Blane de St. Croix, the artist who created the sculpture he calls Broken Landscape III.

"It’s a capturing of a section of landscape -- it’s a section of our new federal fence line -- a border of Mexico at Eagle Pass" he explained.  "It is just under a mile of the actual fence line for the viewer to experience."

St. Croix has compressed an architectural actuality into a much smaller artistic representation.

"It represents three varieties of landscapes that the federal fence line cuts through: One is a man-made section of land, which is a golf course, one is the urban section of Eagle Pass down by the Rio Grande, and one is the cliffs that overlook the wilds area, over the Rio Grande," he said.

The exhibit opens with a free reception from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. on Thursday, December 5. Here St. Croix describes what the piece does at the Blue star.

"It architecturally breaks the space in two. When you enter into the space you’re not really aware of which side of the border you’re on," he said.

He’s not looking to take a political stand; he just wants to get people thinking and talking.

"These pieces are really about having a conversation, hopefully opening a bigger, broader-based dialogue," he said.

I asked if that conversation he's looking to have would be in Spanish, or English?

"Hopefully, many languages," he said.

Jack Morgan can be reached at jack@tpr.org and on Twitter at @JackMorganii