Text by Andrea Andersson, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Lucy Lippard, Macarena Gomez-Barris.
Vicuña makes art of gathered materials from the ocean, the river and the street
Beginning and ending at the edge of the ocean, Chileanborn artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña's (born 1948) artist's book serves as both a lament and love letter to the sea. Vicuña collects the detritus that washes up on shore and assembles out of the refuse tiny precarios and basuritas—little sculptures held together with nothing more than string and wire. About to Happen, which accompanies an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, traces a decades-long practice that has refused categorical distinctions and thrived within the confluences of conceptual art, land art, feminist art, performance and poetry. In an era of increasing climate change and economic disparity, Vicuña’s nuanced visual poetics—operating fluidly between concept and craft, text and textile—transforms the discarded into the elemental, paying acute attention to the displaced, the marginalized and the forgotten.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Cecilia Vicuña: About to Happen.'
FORMAT: Pbk, 8 x 8 in. / 148 pgs / 100 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $32.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $43.95 GBP £28.99 ISBN: 9781938221156 PUBLISHER: Siglio AVAILABLE: 4/25/2017 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WORLD Except France
Published by Siglio. Text by Andrea Andersson, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Lucy Lippard, Macarena Gomez-Barris.
Vicuña makes art of gathered materials from the ocean, the river and the street
Beginning and ending at the edge of the ocean, Chileanborn artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña's (born 1948) artist's book serves as both a lament and love letter to the sea. Vicuña collects the detritus that washes up on shore and assembles out of the refuse tiny precarios and basuritas—little sculptures held together with nothing more than string and wire.
About to Happen, which accompanies an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, traces a decades-long practice that has refused categorical distinctions and thrived within the confluences of conceptual art, land art, feminist art, performance and poetry. In an era of increasing climate change and economic disparity, Vicuña’s nuanced visual poetics—operating fluidly between concept and craft, text and textile—transforms the discarded into the elemental, paying acute attention to the displaced, the marginalized and the forgotten.
