Analogy I (2nd version)/Analogía I (2da. versión)

Currently not on view

Analogy I (2nd version)/Analogía I (2da. versión)

1970-1977

Víctor Grippo (Argentine, 1936–2002)

A leading South American conceptualist of his generation, Argentine artist Víctor Grippo applied his background in chemistry to create works of art that explore the relationship between science and art, religion and society, the factual and the imaginative. In Analogía I, a central work in Grippo's oeuvre, he connects a battery made of potatoes---a humble food of Latin American origin---to electrodes, cables, and a voltmeter that measures the energy it generates when visitors press the button on the meter, which they are encouraged to do. The piece is intended to establish a parallel between electro-chemical energy and consciousness, the life-sustaining energy of the simplest of foods and the power of the mind---and art---to transform itself and its environment.

Currently not on view

Object Details

Title:

Analogy I (2nd version)/Analogía I (2da. versión)

Date:

1970-1977

Artist:

Víctor Grippo (Argentine, 1936–2002)

Medium:

Potatoes, zinc and copper electrodes, electrical cable, meter, text, table, chair, soil

Dimensions:

43 5/16 inches × 26 feet 2 15/16 inches (110 × 800 cm)

Classification:

Installation Art

Credit Line:

Joint acquisition by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with funds contributed by the Committee on Modern and Contemporary Art; and The Art Institute of Chicago, through prior gift of Adeline Yates, 2008

Accession Number:

2008-229-1a--d

Geography:

Made in Argentina, South America

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Currently not on view