Vija Celmins
To Fix the Image in Memory (1977-82)

To Fix the Image in Memory places eleven small stones and their duplicates, made of painted cast bronze, onto a surface, challenging the viewer to decipher the real from the manmade and to question the relevance of the distinctions between real object and copy, nature and art. Culled from the area around the Rio Grande near Taos, New Mexico, where Celmins went to recover from the breakup of a romance in 1977, the stones have a magical, talismanic quality. They are all different shapes, colors and textures, ranging from the craggy to the phallic to the fecal, with interesting markings and lines on each.

“I got the idea for this piece while walking in northern New Mexico picking up rocks, as people do. I’d bring them home and I kept the good ones. I noticed that I kept a lot that had galaxies on them. I carried them around in the trunk of my car. I put them on window sills. I lined them up. And, finally, they formed a set, a kind of constellation. I developed this desire to try and put them into an art context. Sort of mocking art in a way, but also to affirm the act of making: the act of looking and making as a primal act of art.” By having each original rock installed with its duplicate, Celmins invites the viewer to examine them closely: “Part of the experience of exhibiting them together with the real stones,” she has said, “was to create a challenge for your eyes. I wanted your eyes to open wider.”