Edited and with introduction by Clara Kim. Foreword by Olga Viso. Text by Patricia Falguiéres, Sergio González Rodríguez, Catalina Lozano, David Miranda, Verónica Gerber, Abraham Cruzvillegas.
Published on the occasion of the artist’s first major survey, this volume explores the rich terrain of Abraham Cruzvillegas’ (born 1968) work over the past ten years, rooting his sculptural language within the volcanic landscape of his childhood home in Ajusco, Mexico. The publication elaborates on Cruzvillegas’ interest in autoconstrucción, a construction method arising from the constraints of poverty, in which parts are recycled and adapted for new purposes. Developed in collaboration with the artist, the volume features five essays examining autoconstrucción through the lens of art history, politics, architecture and urban migration in Mexico in the 1960s. Along with these texts, the publication includes sculptures by Cruzvillegas; snapshots of Ajusco, Mexico, taken by the artist; archival images of Ajusco from the Cruzvillegas Fuentes family album; titles that inform and inspire the artist's thinking about autoconstrucción; silkscreened posters of liberation movements in Latin America; and the artist's index of concepts and song lyrics written as allegories of his childhood. Bilingual (English/Spanish).
Featured image is reproduced from Abraham Cruzvillegas: The Autoconstrucción Suites.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Publisher's Weekly
Editors
The oversized book includes photographs of people, buildings, and landscapes, as well as of sculptures-like the crude wooden stool and lumber scraps perched atop an oversized vegetable-oil can, garlanded with a string of limes hanging from the ceiling-inspired by Ajusco's ad hoc found-object architecture.
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FROM THE BOOK
"This catalogue of the Mexican multimedia artist's midcareer retrospective displays the rampant exuberance of Cruzvillegas's work, which he calls autoconstrucción (self-construction), born of 'the improvisational building methods and techniques utilized in his hometown [of Ajusco].' Olga Viso, the Walker Art Center's executive director, explains: 'For Cruzvillegas, sculptural form is a process of change, action, solidarity, and transformation.' The oversized book includes photographs of people, buildings, and landscapes, as well as of sculptures—like the crude wooden stool and lumber scraps perched atop an oversized vegetable-oil can, garlanded with a string of limes hanging from the ceiling—inspired by Ajusco's ad hoc found-object architecture. There are also images of roughly printed political and advertising posters; song lyrics and documentation of theater and video projects; and provocative artist statements (he says of autoconstrucción, 'It's called Pataphysics. I also call it Taoism'). Cruzvillegas writes, 'However art makes itself evident, it shall remain, above all, raw source material in all its natural, unstable, physical, chaotic, and crystalline states: solid, liquid, colloidal, and gaseous. It is the joy of energy.' Essays in oversized typeface by curator and editor Kim, and six other vigorously imaginative writers illuminate the artworks." - Publishers Weekly
FORMAT: Pbk, 10 x 14 in. / 240 pgs / 1 color / 147 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $60.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $79 GBP £53.00 ISBN: 9781935963059 PUBLISHER: Walker Art Center AVAILABLE: 5/31/2013 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Walker Art Center. Edited and with introduction by Clara Kim. Foreword by Olga Viso. Text by Patricia Falguiéres, Sergio González Rodríguez, Catalina Lozano, David Miranda, Verónica Gerber, Abraham Cruzvillegas.
Published on the occasion of the artist’s first major survey, this volume explores the rich terrain of Abraham Cruzvillegas’ (born 1968) work over the past ten years, rooting his sculptural language within the volcanic landscape of his childhood home in Ajusco, Mexico. The publication elaborates on Cruzvillegas’ interest in autoconstrucción, a construction method arising from the constraints of poverty, in which parts are recycled and adapted for new purposes. Developed in collaboration with the artist, the volume features five essays examining autoconstrucción through the lens of art history, politics, architecture and urban migration in Mexico in the 1960s. Along with these texts, the publication includes sculptures by Cruzvillegas; snapshots of Ajusco, Mexico, taken by the artist; archival images of Ajusco from the Cruzvillegas Fuentes family album; titles that inform and inspire the artist's thinking about autoconstrucción; silkscreened posters of liberation movements in Latin America; and the artist's index of concepts and song lyrics written as allegories of his childhood. Bilingual (English/Spanish).
