after the daughter of one of the founding townspeople of Riverside. The name change, remarks deSoto, shows that “the landscape has become estranged from itself.” Few lo- cal non-Native residents know the meaning of the original name, or the disquieting but fascinating stories connected to it. The artist’s most recent work, an instal-
T
lation at the Culver Center of the Arts at the University of California, Riverside, revived the earlier memory of the being Tahquitz and his landscape. The Cahuilla have fear- some stories about the rapacious behavior of Tahquitz, who kidnaps people and eats their souls, trapping them in his mountain home. His appetite is insatiable and uncontrol-
lable. This behavior represents desires that go untamed, possibly a metaphor for today’s world of overconsumption and greed. DeSoto says, “everything has power; electrical power or spiritual power are a form of aiva’a.” All beings and objects need to be respected and acknowl- edged for their power and place in the universe. The site-specific installation and col-
laborative work, Lewis deSoto and Erin Neff: Tahquitz, at the Culver Center, reveals the dis- connection between the land and its stories. The artwork took shape once he visited the challenging exhibition space with its 40-foot atrium, double columns and expansive sky- light. Like his other works, deSoto used light and sound technology along with his objects. Like the stories of Tahquitz, the instal-
lation at the Culver Center was dramatic, dominated by a large boulder suspended from the ceiling. As viewers walk under this massive rock, that appears almost to float overhead, a woman’s voice is heard sing- ing the story of Tahquitz in Cahuilla in a western operatic style. Looking up in the gallery, a transparent topographic map of the San Jacinto Mountains from the 1880s fills the entire skylight, giving the viewer a somewhat disorienting feeling of looking down on the landscape from the sky. Against one wall, a Cahuilla basket image is project- ed, its spiral design slowly rotating clockwise. In between the boulder and the basket, an Edison phonograph rests on a table – similar
CONTINUED E SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 27
he mountain range where Tahquitz lives includes Tahquitz Peak, a sa- cred place that is now a popular hiking and rock-climbing locale. It is also called Lily Rock, named
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