Webs of Liberty
1976/98
Iron, glass
59 1/16 x 59 1/16 in. (150 x 150 cm)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Cecilia Wong, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz, and the Modern and Contemporary Art Council
In this work a planar iron grid welded to a square frame of the same material hangs from the ceiling on wires. Meireles is a sculptor, and space is a primary concern for him. Webs of Liberty is almost two-dimensional, but you fully experience it by walking around it. The grid, which is large enough and high enough to act as a barrier, is spiky, rough, rusty, threatening. You look through it at the world around you, as you would through a fence that barred your entrance and exit. A rectangle of transparent glass is lodged within the coarse, uneven grid. The title of the work poses a conundrum: the word webs connotes connection but also entrapment, the opposite of liberty. The point may be that, in the absence of community (connection), the notion of freedom is a trap.
