1970-1977

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

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.