Alberto Montaño Mason creates pieces that fill rooms and fill our spirits with messages that cry out in an expression of freedom. The first time I met him I was at an open house at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, and as I walked into his studio I felt the power of the pieces before I knew who the Artist was or what the pieces were. I felt the work in a visceral way, large black structures that I later discovered represented files, sheets of mylar, sandbags and masses of iron, and sculptural pieces that tell a story about a world where people are reduced to numbers, imprisoned, and kept behind walls that represent a fear of cultural diversity and the desire to control. To say that the Artist himself is speaking powerfully through these works is an understatement. These pieces are larger than life and in a way the message and the person of Alberto Montaño Mason are larger than life as well.
When I found the Artist in his studio that first day, we spoke about his work and I promised to return again. The next time the work and messages had changed, and he had begun incorporating the idea of human breath and the tenuousness of life by a living sculpture that held balloons that had the breath of different people in them. Visiting him is always an adventure, and one that brings to life ideas and philosophy, and that also makes us thing in ways that are striking and profound. I contacted him a few months ago to see if we could connect so that I could write the blog post about him I've been wanting to write for several years now. He travels often, and is not always available in his studio even when he is in town because of his busy schedule. At the time he was sheltering in place in Mexico, and so I waited, but somehow with everything that has been going on the world and everything that has happened in these past weeks, now seemed like the time to bring his work into these pages.
The world we are living in at times seems like it is surreal. Just when we think that we are rounding a corner to a better place, we hear more news that shakes everything we have known. An Artist like Alberto Montaño Mason can help us to see the present in all of its stark reality, but he can also help us to see a vision of freedom and the possibility of a brighter future because of the courage in his work that in showing us the darker underside can bring awareness and open us up to the idea that there can be light.
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