body

Paul McCarthy (1945, Salt Lake, USA)

Children's Anatomical Educational Figure (ca. 1990)



 McCarthy has always been transgressive and critical about his culture but with lots of humor. He comes from a very American background and often uses references from popular culture such as cartoons, toys, porn, or just our higly sexual culture, violence, other contemporary artists ( This same year, for the Frieze Art Fair in New York Mc Carthy did one of Joseph Koon's dogs, but as actual balloons, whoch was one of those epic art -in your face- statements)... and even shit, as he did on the piece he created for the Paul Klee Center in Bern, where his gigantic inflatable turd, ended up falling and making a mess in the premises.

 Anyway, he started out as a performance artist, usually related to the Vienese actionism movement, however McCarthy has his very own way of performing in a transgressive way, but from his own background, not necesarilly copying European ways of doing, he says that rather of making a shamanistic ritual out of his performance he is just being a clown.

 The piece selected for the Biennal works as a found object, of this huge stuffed doll with some of its viscera comming out from a hole in his belly, he leaves us wanting more, with the need of tearing this doll apart and discovering all of his internal being, it has a bit of a black humor touch on it, but it just brings back this curiosity we have as kids, it's definitely provoking.

Jhon deAndrea (1941, Denver, USA)

He is one of the many hyperrealist artists who came out from a strong movement in the US , mid 60's. His complex tecnique starts from making the mold from the model then a bronze cast is made of it and DeAndrea works directly on it with layers and layers of paint, making it look incredibly human like. This sculptures look like people that got lost on time and space and are now vulnerable and defenseless under the scrutinizing eyes of the viewers.

Traditions

Paño Drawings

Personally this was one of the most exciting pieces I saw at the encyclopedic palace, an amazing collection of drawings made by Mexican- american prisioners in their paños/ Tissues. This designs are only made by the ones in charge at the prission, the ones with the artistic vein, they also work as a trading good.

 Drawings here, work as a way of communication with the loved ones outside, they are filled with images deriving from chicano culture, catholic symbols, pornography and lowrider magazines.

 I find the aesthetic mixture very interesting, they have a relation with mural painting, and tattooing by the way characters and other elements are settled. Making sure they can use all of the space possible to translate their message, the paños end up giving that feeling of anxiety that horror vaciu brings.

 Phyllis Galambo, (1952, New York, USA)

Galambo has been interested in rituals, traditions and customes from different cultures from Caribbean countries like Haiti, Cuba or Jamaica.

To make this large scale photographs, she combines this colorful and saturated costumes with more occidentalized indumentary, like plastic halloween masks, other times she uses the original indigenous masks. This series is all about The Winneba Fancy Dress festival in Ghana.

This festival was originated in the late 1920's. but during the years it has transformed contstantly and new elements of outside cultures as well as parodies of local people and professions, in the 50's the festival became huge and it gained recognition from the Ghana government.

 This amazing garnments are a mixture combining three continents, thousands of miles, transformations, from africa to The Caribbean and Europe, and viceversa. which at the end creates a fascinating aesthetic feel to it. A moment where humans become creatures and when everyone is wearing a mask the world goes mad, its time for carnival!

Bijlmer dance

Outsiders at The Biennale.

Part of Curatorial project by Cindy Sherman

Ex- Votos from The Santuario di Romituzzo. (16th to 19th century, Poggibonsi, Sienna, Italy)

Several Ex-Votos have been collected during centuries in The chapel of Romituzzo. A Painting of Madonna and The Child that rests on the altar, devotees believe it has a healing power and they offer this Ex-votos as an exchange for healing different body parts and diseases.

Hundreds of this figures have been found, some even full body size. However ordinary people didn't make them. They where commissioned to specialized craftsmen who would assemble them using the papier mâché technique. some of the figures still have some leftovers of the original paint, however the ones displayed at the exhibition where washed out, in bone color. Resembling a cemetery or a common grave, but on the other side it reminded me of little spirits from all those people in pain.

I can imagine how they would put all their hopes and charged this object with such power, as a reflection of themselves, I guess that energy prevails in objects, specially ritualistic ones. So it was definitely very interesting how the curator, managed to put this sort of sacred objects from communities and tribes from different continents right next to works from really famous contemporary artists!, i think that is fantastic!, because art is not always necessarily called art to start with.

Linda Fregni Nagler (1976, Stockholm, Sweden)

 Linda Fregni has been working as a collector, building an archive of more than a thousand images, more specificaly, photographs of babies in the late nineteen century, while they are being held by their hidden-under-a-blanket mother or father.

 The photographic tencniques used at the time such as daguerrotypes, albumen prints or tintypes took a long expossure time, so small children could no stay still. This bizarre and creative way to portrait this kids, becomes scary and ghostly, as this dark figures were death or evil spirits after the child. They where also taken at a time were another genre of photograph was emerging: post mortem photography, in which families would keep a portrait of their dead relative, it was specially done when kids and babies passed away.

 This collection, presented as an archive, keeps you hypnotized, imagining all of the stories behind this photos, seen as this it starts to resemble some weird ritual from the afterlife, while I was looking at it, I just kept thinking, "wow! all of this kids are dead by now!"

Hans Schärer (1927, 1997, Bern, Switzerland)

Schärer left his University studies in Lausanne, Switzerland to pursue a career as an artist, he moved to a villa near Lucerne,and started working in painting, sculpture, tapestry, drawings and prints, however he never intended to get inside the whee of commercial art world and he was satisfied just sharing his works with his family and close friends.

 In the late fifties and until the mid eighties, he worked on images that reflected psychological states of mind, he started to use more basic shapes and patterns. That is how the series Madonnas came to life. he used thick oil paint, mixed with different materials like soil or wax, he also added elements like little rocks or teeth and placed them as amulets in the female bodies.

His figures where obviously feminine but sexless. They have an almost magnetic effect on the viewer with their vibrant colours and textures that resemble ritual body painting and have a god likeness in its presence.

Sergey Sarva (1973, Kryvyi Rih, Ucraine)

In the series Ogoniok, Sarva transforms and deforms the covers of an important soviet magazine, bringing characters from politics and public figures to some kind of freaks part dead part alive, revelaing certain monstrosities perpetuated by the communist regime. He starteed working on his painting techniques using his family's photographs.

Enrico Baj (1924-2003, Milano, Italy)

 Enrico Baj, defenitely pushed the envelope in his time, along with the artist Sergio Dangelo, he founded the Nuclear art Movement in Italy. That is how they managed to manifest their reject to all kinds of artistic as well as political movements at the time. He went back to the basics: Breton. and the surrealists, as well as child like freedom of expression, and he started working on this crafted figures, using very day to day materials and geometrical designs that somehow became iconoclastic figures of women. Later he worked on actual puppets.

 Very Interesting article in The Hufftington Post : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/venice-biennale-2013-celebrates-the-outsider_n_3364798.html


Haitian Vodou Flags

Vodou traditions in the Caribbean come from the African culture, however under the colonialism it merges into a syncretic gathering of European and African religious imaginary.

This sparkling flags were used in Vodou ceremonies to attract the spirits and entities being invoked, to occupy the bodies of the devotees. Most of the four haitian Vodou flags have catholic, massonic and African symbols, maritime lore and the ritual designs veve mixed in a piece. Each Ioa (gods represented in the flags) has a specific character and function, like in a set of tarot cards, and they have a certain set of attributes that may be depicted with a dagger, a boat or a bird.

Dambala, the creator is usually represented by snakes, he is the life giver, the one who provides fertility and rain. he and other Iouas can be help for people who need council or advice and other gods like Erzulie Freda can bring rage and lust, flirts with men and hates all women. This incredibly rich mixture of cultures and religious iconography from Africa to the Caribbean, through Europe.

Comming from slavery, colonialism and ancient rituals, brings up a somehow unheard history of the development of religion in this long time European colonies. Some of this rituals are still practiced all around the world, but its roots stand strong in Africa and the caribbean Islands, Santeria, practiced in Cuba is another clear example of African- European syncretism.

The Encyclopedic Palace

The Encyclopedic Palace, was the main theme of Arsenale's Exhibition this year at The Venice Biennale, gathering artists from all disciplines, who obsessively collect or create images, but most importantly their own universes.

 It ranges from 19th century photography, to art brut, going through comic, african voodoo flags, minimal art and even one space curated by Cindy Sherman. The term encyclopedic Palace was coined by the Italian- American artist Maurino Autri on 1955, his idea was building a huge museum which contained all knowledge known by men, which obviously never happened.

 The dialogues created by the heterogeneous group of artist , result in a time traveling, image saturated, compulsive journey, in my opinion a magnificent curatrial job by Massimiliano Gioni. This are some of my highlights!


 Ryan Trecartin (1981, Webster, USA) Trecartin's videos are very confusing and even disturbing at the first moments you encounter them. They are projected in different scenarios that resemble, camps, a pool house, or a friends living room, inviting the spectator to get involved as a voyeour of a satire of nowadays television and internet based culture,of reality tv, game shows, digital interaction, sport games.

The characters are all ambiguous, they have heavy glittery make up, and somehow grotesque but still resemble the popular culture, that has spread from The States all around the world. Trecartin works with collaborators Lizzy Fitch, rET La Rhue and others Stills.

Pierre Molinier (1900-1976, Agen, France)

Usually being both the subject and the creator of his photographies, Molinier's controversial images materialize his erotic and fetichist nature.

He used sculpture and a sort of prosthetic extremities creating this hermaphrodite sexually charged characters, his subjects are himself, sometimes models or a doll. He used a very simple camera and developed his pictures in his kitchen, being extremely resourceful, using collages to create the mirror effects in his images, which resemble indian deities.

Carol Rama (1918, Torino, Italia)

 Rama is one of the leading artists in making a feminist statement using sexually explicit images from a woman's point of view, which was a main topic of discussion on the 60s and 70s.

 She comes from a troubled family. Her dad went bankrupt and committed suicide when she was very young and her mother was mentally ill. Anyway she managed to get into art and involved with artist friends, which led to a quite fruitful career, but in 1945 (during the italian regime) some of her sexually charged drawings where confiscated before being exhibited.

Her work is all body related, she often includes furs, which her mother used to sell, bones, teeth, , masturbation, with a disturbing shift when sometimes placed in a hospital environment. She shows such honesty, delicacy and roughness in her work comparable to Louise Bourgeois's sketches.

Karl Schenker (1880s- 1951/2,Germany)

Comming from a post war time, where most of the women had joined the working forces, and many of the men had died, Germany, specially berlin goes through a revival, and becomes a culturally rich, modern city, with deep aesthetic consciousness in fashion and art. Karl Schenker, was a well known fashion photographer. In some occasions, instead of human models he developed his own mannequins, using fake hair, and eyelashes, and prosthetic limbs that where quite commun in that period due to the war consequences.

 The resulting photographs are a mixture of elegance and creepiness, his women though beautiful still have that dead look of an inanimate creature. It is impossible not to think of Fritz Lang's automatas in Metropolis.