Miguel Ángel Rios

Piedras Blancas

Miguel Ángel Rios

Piedras Blancas (White Stones) depicts a herd of 3,200 concrete orbs crashing through the desert. Without any special effects, Miguel Ángel Rios filmed these astonishing scenes on location in Mexico's state of Morales over several months to compile hundreds of shots, some only a few seconds in length. Art in America called this artwork "a cinematic tour de force". Each handmade orb is roughly the size of a grapefruit. In groups, their movement evokes a migration or an invasion--ambiguous behaviors that Rios offers as symbols of the historic intermingling of cultures across the Americas. Rios asks, "Are we witnessing some kind of game, or is it a catastrophe in the making? The viewer is placed in an all too familiar situation: that of witnessing the rapid unfolding of events (often catastrophic) that remain elusive, beyond comprehension."