Mercedes Azpilicueta
Versos y versiones: de la palabra a la imagen
Centro Cultural Galileo, Madrid
Jun 25 - Jul 10, 2022
Mercedes Azpilicueta
Mercedes Azpilicueta (born in La Plata, Argentina in 1981) is a visual and performance artist living and working in Amsterdam and Buenos Aires. Her artistic practice brings together various characters from the past and the present, who manifest as voices, shapes, texts, traces and memories into her multi-layered works. Calling herself a “dishonest researcher”, Azpilicueta navigates through multiple references and fields of knowledge, from art history to popular music, from literature to street culture, falling in love with dissident figures and trajectories —feminist, queer, migrant, exiled individuals— who haunt her scripts, performances and videos. Yet, her work never indulges into cold reverence or archival fascination. By engaging the body with all its flaws and potentials —her own body, that of her muses and collaborators, that of the spectators, but also fantasized ones— Azpilicueta embraces its fragility as well as its capacity for resistance and care.
Most specifically known for her performance and language-based works, Mercedes Azpilicueta’s practice has evolved in the recent years into exploring the theatrical possibilities of sculpture and installation. However, the objects that she produces should not be taken for granted, as they always bear the potential of being activated in various ways. They could be translated as scores, set designs, props, mnemonic devices or records — disguised as sculptures. They often take different functions according to their context of apparition and travel merrily from a work to another. The fabrication of these objects often involves “poor”, craft-based or handmade techniques that are often associated with the domestic work of women and with subaltern knowledge, such as sewing, embroidering or dying. The materials are either recycled or natural (latex, leather, wool, silk, wax) and add another layer of stories to the objects, that of the circulation of resources and knowledge often acquired through the violent exploitation of humans and nature.
Selected Works
Potatoes, Riots, and Other Imaginaries
2021
Jacquard tapestry
352 x 1200 cm (138 19⁄32 x 472 7⁄16 inches)
Untitled
2021
Mixed media
7 elements
The Lieutenant-Nun Is Passing: An Autobiography of Katalina, Antonio, Alonso and More
2021
Jacquard tapestry (Merino wool, cotton, lurex)
Wood structure not included
The Delinquent Breeches
2021
Textile sculpture (Wool felt, merino wool, cotton, wood)
112 x 50 x 155 cm (44 3⁄32 x 19 11⁄16 x 61 1⁄32 inches)
On the Dignity of Codpieces [1]
2021
Textile sculpture (Wool felt, merino wool, cotton, acrylic yarn)
45 x 35 x 10 cm (17 23⁄32 x 13 25⁄32 x 3 15⁄16 inches)
Lady’s Dreams or Stop right there gentlemen!
2019
Jacquard Textile (wool and cotton)
157 x 600 cm (61 13⁄16 x 236 7⁄32 inches)
The Captive: Here’s a Heart for Every Fate
2019
Jacquard Textile (wool and cotton)
157 x 300 cm (61 13⁄16 x 118 1⁄8 inches)
The faux-cul
2019
Costume-sculpture (cotton, cord, jersey, elastic, side squeeze buckle, sock, wood beams)
106 x 212 x 150 cm (41 23⁄32 x 83 15⁄32 x 59 1⁄16 inches)
Bestiaire of tonguelets, Act I, scene 1, 2, 3 and 4
2019
Natural linen, two-tone natural silk, thread
296 x 140 cm (116 17⁄32 x 55 1⁄8 inches)
Soft Armour III (Micheline)
2018
Wool cloth dyed with natural dyes, handmade natural latex, thread
190 x 100 x 80 cm (74 13⁄16 x 39 3⁄8 x 31 1⁄2 inches)
La Femme-Maison
2019
Single channel video, sound
0h 02' 33''
Hommage al reverso de Natività di San Giovanni Battista, Pontormo, 1526 (I)
2019
Wool felt, red oxide and caput mortuum natural dyes, hand-made dyed eco-latex, metal chains
Artemisia Gentileschi. Giuditta che decapita Oloferne, 1620 -1621 circa, Firenze Gallerie degli Uffizi
2018
Giclée print on cotton paper
36.5 x 49 x 3 cm (14 3⁄8 x 19 9⁄32 x 1 3⁄16 inches)
Starfish & Amoeba
2020
Cotton, oak gall nuts, citric acid, ferrous sulphate, cord, thread
337 x 153 cm (132 11⁄16 x 60 1⁄4 inches)
Bacterial-dress
2020
Costume-sculpture [double brushed cotton, madder-root dyeing, onion skins, oak gall nuts, ferrous sulphate, cord, natural felt]
240 x 80 cm (94 1⁄2 x 31 1⁄2 inches)
Yegua-yeta-yuta
2018
Natural two-tone silk, stitched linen + Audio
380 x 150 cm (149 5⁄8 x 59 1⁄16 inches)
Volver a casa expandiendo la voz (Back home expanding the voice)
2018
Canvas and gauze made of cotton, linen, fiber, silk, calico, jersey, ribbon and thread
380 x 150 cm (149 5⁄8 x 59 1⁄16 inches)
Soft Armour VII (Quasimodo)
2018
Recycled leather, "hombreras", wood sticks, copper
150 x 100 x 105 cm (59 1⁄16 x 39 3⁄8 x 41 11⁄32 inches)
Soft Armour IV (Baroque Ghost)
2018
Natural handmade latex, linen dyed with natural dyes, cotton cloth, thread
165 x 40 x 40 cm (64 31⁄32 x 15 3⁄4 x 15 3⁄4 inches)
Cuerpos Pájaros (Body-Bodies)
2018
Synchronized three-channel video projection
0h 15' 00''Installation
Bestiario de Lengüitas, 2020
MUSEION – Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bolzano, Bolzano
Bestiario de Lengüitas, 2020
MUSEION – Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bolzano, Bolzano
Cuerpos Pájaros, 2018
Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires
11th Biennial d'Art Leandre Cristòfol, 2019
Centre d'Art la Panera, Lleida
Bestiario de Lengüitas, 2019
CentroCentro, Madrid
Bestiario de Lengüitas, 2019
CentroCentro, Madrid
Post-Opera, 2019
TENT, Rotterdam
Telling Untold Stories - Positions #5, 2019
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Telling Untold Stories - Positions #5, 2019
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Performance/Documentation/Presentation, 2020
LundsKonsthall, Lund
News
Exhibitions
Revelations on a shapeless sphere
FontetaJun 17 - Aug 28, 2022
For the second consecutive year, we are delighted to present a collaborative project between galleries Bombon, Galeria Joan Prats and NoguerasBlanchard. The proposal for this summer once again brings together artists from the three galleries and from different generations in an exhibition format that will be based on the exquisite corpse principle, with a text by poet Eduardo Escoffet written for the occasion.
Focusing on this act of collective exchange, during the summer of 2022, the artists invited to participate, the first of them Pere Noguera (La Bisbal del Ampurdán, Girona; 1941) , will be in charge of selecting the first group of artists, and so on in succession, until closing a cycle of exhibition proposals made up of works spanning different generations and imaginaries.
Chapter 1: Opening Saturday 25 June
Pere Noguera, Luis Gordillo, Ludovica Carbotta (Room 1)
Pere Noguera, Anna Dot, The Late Estate Broomberg & Chanarin (Room 2)
Chapter 2: Opening Saturday 16 July
Ludovica Carbotta, Muntadas, Francesco Arena (Room 1)
The Late Estate Broomberg & Chanarin, Jordi Mitjà, Rasmus Nilausen (Room 2)
Chapter 3: Opening Saturday 6 August
Francesco Arena, Victoria Civera, Perejaume (Room 1)
Ángela de la Cruz, Rasmus Nilausen, Lola Lasurt (Room 2)
Chapter 4: Opening Thursday 18 August
Perejaume, Pere Llobera, Ignacio Uriarte (Room 1)
Lola Lasurt, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Fernando Prats (Room 2)
c/ Empordà, 10, Fonteta, Girona
Jun: Friday to Sunday from 5 to 9pm
Jul and Aug: Monday to Sunday from 5 to 9pm
Katalina, Antonio, Alonso
MadridSep 09 - Nov 13, 2021
Taking the autobiography that Catalina de Erauso left in writing, in the words of Verónica Rossi, Azpilicueta carries out “an exercise in historiographical imagination that gives another twist to the succession of stories that construct the past”, weaving a work from memories, archives and imaginaries, rethinking history and breathing new life into dissident figures and trajectories of colonial history.
Discover
Estar a la lluna
FontetaAug 07 - Sep 26, 2021
We’re delighted to present the second chapter of the joint project by Bombon, Galeria Joan Prats and NoguerasBlanchard, taking place in Fonteta, a small village in the Empordà region from June to September.
The exhibition, conceived in two chapters, brings together artists from three different generations. The proposal begins with a concept from the Empordà Parar la fresca (to take in fresh air) described by Josep Pla in the book Las Horas (The Hours), 1953.
Discover
