By Marilyn Bauer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Pepon Osorio (Born 1955, Santurce, Puerto Rico)

Pepon Osorio and part of his Badge of Honor installation. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

In Badge of Honor, an installation by Pepon Osorio opening Saturday at the new Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, the spartan jail cell of a father is juxtaposed with the pop-culture chaos of his teenage son's room. On the outside walls of each "cage" the father and son carry on a conversation from large video screens.

The piece is about one Puerto Rican family and families everywhere. It's about separation and incarceration. It's about love, the future and failure.

"For me it's about bringing people to make connections through pop culture," Osorio said during the installation of Badge. "It's about what museums are and that life matters."

Osorio worries that a museum's structure can swallow the work, which is ironic in that he is showing in Zaha Hadid's tremendous new building. His pieces are filled with found objects and kitsch and overflow with brightly colored glass and plastic. Not to mention social context.

"I want people to see life through the art," he said. "I'm interested in pushing the limit, in somehow finding a place in an exhibition space for higher discussion. I want to change people's minds about art."

Badge is very accessible. The walls of the boy's bedroom are papered with baseball cards; sports posters hang in places over the cards. The bed is unique, the floor a mirror, which makes the dizzying effect of the chock-full bedroom even more dazzling.

But with accessibility comes engagement and what most frequently happens is viewers are moved to tears.

"I see a lot of people crying," he says. "It is very moving. Often people come to me and thank me for letting them know a little bit about something they have forgotten about."

E-mail mbauer@enquirer.com