Eleven woven samples of colourful textile rugs made with a pre-Hispanic traditional technique stand on cantera rock plinths; a few of them look like flags, but don't seem to have the strength or the energy to weave in the wind, while others look as if they had collapsed on the rocks. This is "Cántico del descenso I-XI", an installation by Cynthia Gutiérrez at the 57 International Art Exhibition.
Gutiérrez often focuses in her works on issues such as memory, pondering on situations of conflict, or applying to historical elements a sort of distorted chronology. The artist is also interested in installations with an architectural twist about them and in artworks that can tell stories via universally recognised symbols refashioned into new emblems (like the recurring severed heads in her work that hint at the violence of the Mexican drug cartels).
Located in the Pavilion of Traditions, a section of the Arsenale dedicated to all those artists willing to explore past historical references and reinvent and reinterpret them, "Cántico del descenso I-XI", is a way for the artist to let the textiles tell unspoken stories of traditions broken and fragmented by colonialism.
The woven tapestries come indeed mainly from the Mexican province of Oaxaca, where they are crafted by women skilled in the pre-Hispanic art of weaving the "telar de cintura".
This is a technique typical of the Mexican tradition, and consists in tying one end of the warp threads to a tree trunk and the other to a weaver's belt. This technique makes it possible to weave while sitting or squatting.
The cantera stone for the plinths was also quarried in Mexico (the name of the stone comes from the Spanish word for quarry): the material was often used to build official monuments during the Spanish domination, but it is employed nowadays by many architects and landscapers.
As the woven pieces do not stand proudly on the pedestals, they become symbols for a utopian Mestizo flag employed by Gutiérrez to make a comment about the disappearing tradition of weaving, and the effects of Spanish omnipotence on the conquered civilisations. At the same time, the installation has a sort of positive note: through these eleven "textile plinths", the artist hints indeed at the possibility of interbreeding cultures.
Image credits for this post
Images 1, 4 and 5, Cynthia Gutièrrez, Cantico del descenso I – XI, 2014, 57th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva, by Italo Rondinella; Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Comments