Museum of Contemporary Religious Art Director Terrance Dempsey Comments on Thomas Skomski’s Installation at St Louis University

The cage has played a prominent role in Skomski’s early work. The innate duality of the form proved to be a fertile device for exploration: The fact that we simultaneously see it and see through it points to the inherent duality of human existence. This type of conundrum lies at the heart of Zen Buddhism, a practice Skomski engaged with since the 60’s and his university years.

The cage took on a deeper significance when Skomski joined priest Ron Kidd and a small group of lay practitioners who ventured to introduce meditation to any inmates at Westville, a maximum-security prison in Indiana. Being locked in with the inmates was a stunning awakening.

Slight correction: replace heavy metal cup with heavy cast iron cup.

On Kondo’s comment, I would replace containment vs. protection with entrapment vs. protection.

Promise is offering something you cannot have which is built into the nature of desire, The lure of it and the inaccessibility. We don’t expect desire to extend a heavy iron cup to us. The extension produces a sense of existential precariousness in the viewer.