INDEX

THE TOWER 
OF KNOWLEDGE



Slide, letter
IAB Iron Meteorite, 57 kg
PÁRAMO GALERÍA, GUADALAJARA 2015
ASU HAYDEN LIBRARY, ARIZONA 2018-19




A monumental neo-Gothic tower looms over the skyline of the city of Pittsburgh. According to the local imagination -idyllically pastoral and wildly modern in equal parts- this building acts as a tribute to the "spirit that was in the hearts of pioneers as, long ago, they sat in their log cabins and thought by candlelight of the great city that would sometime spread out beyond their three rivers” and that they themselves, simply through their own dreaming, were helping to build.

The construction of the Cathedral of Learning concluded in 1937 and has since been established as the main seat of the University of Pittsburgh, the central hub of academic, social, and emotional life for the thousands of students and professors who traverse its classrooms and halls, libraries and dormitories, archives and offices. One of them, William A. Cassidy, shared some of the spirit of those pioneers whose dreams laid the foundations for building a new world: as emeritus professor of the Department of Geology and Planetary Sciences, he traveled the world for almost half a century in search of meteorites and their impact craters, including dozens of expeditions to Antarctica where, along with his team, he discovered so many new specimens that the previously existing inventory on the planet got tripled.

Secular paraphrase, The Tower of Knowledge nominally rewrites the Cathedral of Learning and is inspired by it, as it is a work that unfolds in two stages, as if replicating, through modest mimesis, the structural levels of the building.
A dimly lit room houses a 57 kg meteorite that Cassidy gave to Faivovich & Goldberg, motivated by the hope that, through their artistic practice, it could be seen and experienced by ever more people. In an adjacent space, a slide holds the image of the explorer-scientist by the side of the enormous tower where he learnt and imparted his knowledge. Next to the projector, rests the letter through which he officially bequeathed the custody of the meteorite to the artists.

Both an individual tribute in life and a weighing of the modernist spirit as a collective feat, this work preserves the idea that interpersonal, even affective, relationships are a substance that positively alters the sign of exploration and discovery. Cassidy's and Faivovich & Goldberg's paths crossed in Campo del Cielo, and each of them managed to devise new ways of connecting, translating, and socializing the diverse stories and beauties contained in meteorites. Cassidy passed away in 2020, but his work endures and will grant the emergence of new stories through time; likewise, the ancient space rock he gifted to the artists has become a viable means for nurturing all kinds of affective forces and crossings, of friendships, future dreams, and still unexplored knowledge.












BIBLIOGRAPHIA