Oscar Tuazon: Fire Worship

For the AAM’s Roof Deck Sculpture Garden, Los Angeles–based artist Oscar Tuazon has created a temporary concrete fire pit that conflates the space of the stage with that of a fireplace. The piece serves various functions: as a gathering place for audiences to sit and interact—with each other as well as with the work itself—as a small monument, and as an outdoor heater in Aspen’s cooler months. Engaging ideas at the intersection of sculpture, architectural infrastructure, political activism, and public space, the artist applies industrial materials to construct large-scale, minimalist installations. For his fire pit on the AAM’s roof-deck, Tuazon addresses themes around community, ecology, and the built environment.