Art Lies, Volume 28, Fall 2000 Page: 53
112 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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associations among their semantic components. She dis-
covers the words's inner symmetries and asymmetries,
palindromes, archaic and new meanings, epiphanies or rid-
dles which reveal or fuse the wisdom and knowledge of dif-
ferent traditions. Thus, Vicufia's poetry, a foundational
example of contemporary Latin American literature, to use
Octavio Paz's term, also manifests a unique transcultural
vision reconciling European and Amerindian culture.
However, beyond its highly regarded literary value, her
poetry retains its essential performative and collective char-
acter. It is written to be sung in the open air, following the
tradition of the Canto Inca (the Inca song).
From the point of view of their aural resonance (audi-
tory), her visual installation works, the Quipu ("knots in a
line" in Quechua) and Ceq'e (sight-lines, forms of relation)
evoke great silence . . . They seem to be caught in a linger-
ing, ethereal forgetfulness. The artist suspends, appends,
tacks, knots, weaves, threads, ropes, strings or encircles dis-
jointed elements in natural or urban sites, delineating, cast-
ing subtle patterns or nets made out of different types of
fibres. These poetic actions seem to re-member and re-
c(h)ord the unrecorded, forgotten Quechua thread and
knot tactile writing system. On the other hand, her
Precarios (prayers) or "little Basuritas" (litter), which is how
Vicufia names her small scale intimate assemblages, are
crafted with found natural debris and precarious objects,
suggesting inscriptions in a diary. Using seeds, twigs, drift-
wood, bones, weeds, feathers, scraps of fabric, dismissed
garbage, unnameable fragments, the little pieces seem as
dispensable as subtle noises, tones, accents, guttural
sounds, sighs, whispers that are hardly noticed. However,
beyond their (in)significant appearance or ephemeral
(a)pparition, to Vicufia these little basuritas on the whole,
conform an empowering metonym of the general situation
of Latin American artists in today's world.
Thus, in broad cultural terms, Vicufia's oeuvre can be
seen as an inscription of a trove of ethical ancestral values
found in Andean reciprocity and dialogicity, transmitted
through myths, rituals, riddles, beliefs, proverbs, customs,
cultural practices. Her Quipus, Ceq'e and Precarios not only
enact a variety of gestures imbedded in Andean women's
handicrafts: weaving, spinning, braiding, knotting, tying,
entwining, suspending, balancing, tracing, etching, but, on
another level, they echo those women's oral recitations,
songs, prayers through which the sacred sense of their
labor is passed on.
In contemporary art historical terms, Cecilia Vicufia's
visual work has been linked to a hybrid form of
Modernism, because it resonates with Minimalism's philo-
sophical abstract dissection of form; Body Art's performa-
tive actions and tropes of tactility; Land Art's spatial
metaphors and Arte Povera's cultural biography of materi-
als. However, on a more substantial level, Vicufia's trans-
formation of orally transmitted etymologies into writing,
performance and visual art remits to similar operations by
two Modernist artists who turned aural experience into
radical revisions of visual representation. I am referring tohow Kasimir Malevich's phonetic atomistic experiments
with Zaum poetry impacted his reductive Monochrome
paintings, and how Yves Klein's experience with the "keysuspiros y susurros, a los cuales nunca les prestamos aten-
ci6n. Sin embargo, mis all de su apariencia o (a)parici6n
efimera e (in)significante, para Vicuna estas basuritas son
metforas potenciadoras que denuncian la situaci6n del
artista latinoamericano en el mundo actual.
De hecho, toda la obra visual de Vicuia puede ser
vista como inscripciones intimas de un acervo de valores
6ticos, como la dialogicidad y la reciprocidad en la cultura
ancestral andina, transmitida a trav6s de los mitos, rituales,
creencias, proverbios, hbitos y pricticas culturales. Tanto
los quipu como los ceq'e y los precarios de Vicufa enac-
tdan los gestos y las operaciones manuales de las mujeres
andinas-tejer, trenzar, anudar, ovillar, amarrar, atar, sus-
pender, balancear, trazar, grabar-, y a otro nivel reflejan
las oraciones, cantos y recitaciones mediante los cuales las
mujeres preservan el sentido sagrado de su trabajo.
En t6rminos de la historia del arte contemporineo, la
obra plstica de Cecilia Vicufa ha sido ligada a hibrida-
ciones modernistas, ya que tiene ciertas resonancias con la
disecci6n abstracta filos6fica de la forma en el minimalis-
mo, con las acciones performativas y los tropos de tactili-
dad del body art, y con las metforas espaciales del land art
y la biograffa cultural del material en el arte povera. Sin
embargo, a un nivel mis sustancial, la transformaci6n de
nociones culturales transmitidas oralmente en su obra de
escritura, performance e instalaci6n nos remite a opera-
ciones similares hechas por dos predecesores modernistas
que convirtieron sus propias experiencias aurales en revi-
siones radicales de la representaci6n. Me estoy refiriendo a
la forma como los experimentos fondticos de la poesia
zaum impactaron la pintura reductivista monocromtica de
Kasimir Malevich, y a c6mo la experiencia de Yves Klein
con el "tono" en el misticismo oriental y rosacruz lo con-
dujo hacia sus monocromos azules y a sus performances de
lo inmaterial. No obstante, es de notar que mientras estos
dos artistas hermetizaron sus referentes a trav6s de los uni-
versales de la abstracci6n, lo abstracto en la obra de Vicuia
remite al aspecto palpable de las tradiciones poeticas
orales quechua, nhuatl, mapuche o mazateca. Sus obras,
de hecho, adoptan la diferencia sutil de la abstracci6n en
las culturas amerindias, una forma incorporada, tyctil y
mitopoi6tica que enlaza la realidad y el sentido en el
lenguaje, y que no concibe dicotomfas entre la materia y el
espiritu, lo real y lo representado, lo oral y lo visual.6
Contrastando con sus predecesores modernistas, esta
artista chilena, residenciada en Nueva York desde hace
ms de veinte aios, evita las inscripciones hist6ricas y
cualquier mimetismo o representaci6n ex6tica de la cultura
amerindia. En su lugar, ella enactia su singular percepci6n
intersubjetiva y dial6gica de la vitalidad arcaica y de la cos-
movisi6n sinest6sica y corporal de la cultura local, como
resultado de sus viajes, su convivencia y sus talleres cre-
ativos con los habitantes de la regi6n. En mi opini6n, la
obra de Vicufia no es s61o una poderosa destilaci6n de
expresiones contemporineas en el arte, sino una explo-
raci6n singular del ethos cultural.7 En este sentido, Vicuia
muestra afinidades con otros artistas y escritores lati-noamericanos que han canalizado experiencias etnol6gi-
cas profundas -artistas plisticos como Lygia Clark, Helio
Oiticica, C6sar Paternosto o escritores de la talla de Jos6ARTL!ES Fall 2000 1 53
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Angelini, Surpik & Hernández, Abdel. Art Lies, Volume 28, Fall 2000, periodical, 2000; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228058/m1/55/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .