Kevin Baer: Reflection Pool

“Greetings, my name is Kevin Baer

The sculptural installation I created for the Family Ties exhibition is entitled:

Reflection Pool (monument to those who have gone before and those who will come after)

The piece, in its beginnings, is rooted in formal concerns – I wanted to fill the space vertically in a dramatic way. I wanted to make something fabric-based in homage to my mother’s early installation work. It was a goal to utilize actual water and bring that element into the gallery space.

An ocean of white fabric swoops down from the wall, then up again suspended high above, finally plunging into a steel reflection pool of black fabric dye and water. Meant to express something of time and change, the large fabric sculpture remains in contact with the dye, the process is not complete – it is active and ongoing.

As the piece progressed, I came to see the long length of fabric as a representation of a linear experience of time, like a timeline, or long scroll unrolling and revealing itself. The powerful image came to mind of the Fates, the Greek goddesses weaving, measuring, and cutting the thread of a life.

It is as if you, the viewer, are the dyed fabric, your lifetime beginning as the irregular black horizon line reaching up toward the sky. Above you are yards and yards of white fabric – generations of humanity born and dying before your time. Contained within the reflection pool are the lives yet to be, future generations yet to emerge.”