Mercedes Azpilicueta
Hommage al reverso de Natività di San Giovanni Battista, Pontormo, 1526 (II), 2019Wool felt, red oxide and caput mortuum natural dyes, hand-made dyed eco-latex, metal chains60 × 50 × 90 cm (23 5⁄8 × 19 11⁄16 × 35 7⁄16 inches)
A figure hang in the center of the room, 'Hommage al reverso de Natività di San Giovanni Battista, Pontormo, 1526 (I)'. This is a revision of a winged creature that appear in the background of the Mannerist painting Natività de San Giovanni Battista by Pontormo: a fantastic, monstrous beings with an old man’s head and a rib-striated torso. In Azpilicueta’s version these become a bird-body, made out of folds and creases of soft felt, covered by meshes and garlands of oily latex, and punctuated by metal chains. This cloth have been died in a colour palette reminiscent of blood, mud and earth tones, evoking a Baroque viscerality that is no longer just European, but also Colonial, and even Postmodern —especially in its poetical Neobaroque version of Rio de la Plata’s underworlds.
