Let's keep
it real:
Clemente
makes
complex
work
that, quite
simply,
gives
pleasure.
4:20 where Jabal is described as 'the
first to live in tents and raise sheep and
goats." Nineteenth century theorists
of architecture and ornament such as
Gottfried Semper and Owen Jones
postulated that tents, draperies and
carpets—cloth, in other words—
constituted the original hut or dwelling,
nomadic or otherwise. The eminent
architectural
historian,
Joseph
Rykwert, explores both the romance
and partial truth of these theories in the
seminal book, On Adam's House in
Paradise: the Idea of the Primitive Hut
in Architectural History. In any case,
Clemente's triptych of tents draws
us back to a paradisal past, real or
imagined, certainly real enough in the
collective unconscious.
The first tent, Standing With Truth,
takes its name from a poem by Kabir,
the 15th century mystic poet and saint
of India, whose writings have greatly
influenced the Bhakti movement, a
widespread Hindu sect which, since
the 14th century, eschews the caste
system. Kabir was born in 1440, near
Varanasi, to a Brahmin widow, then
HYLAND
