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(hammering)

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ABRAHAM CRUZVILLEGAS: I went to the streets
in Paris

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looking for materials from demolitions.

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I was very interested in Antonin Artaud,
the French poet, since I was a teenager.

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(materials clattering)

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for this project in Paris, I decided to approach
him again.

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I like that he constantly looks
for a transformation of language.

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This is Artaud's map of Paris,
and I made some lines for describing possible

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paths

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between points, points that represent the
mind of Artaud.

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For this exhibition, I went to the streets
of Paris,

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and then I used Artaud's map of Paris

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to make sculptures in the spots where he used
to go

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to visit friends or to have a drink.

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And I made sculptures in the place
with the materials from the place,

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and I left the sculpture in the place.

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There should be no image of the work I made,
and there is only an image of the place where

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I made it.

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It was a big experiment for me, in a way,
trying to destroy my own way of making works.

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(hammering)

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In this project, I tried to make the references
and the links to Artaud but not in a didactic way.

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This big piece that I made with wood,
I would call it a necklace, but it's not,

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of course.

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At the beginning, I think it will look
like somebody forgot to finish the work,

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until maybe you discover that there is something
that joins everything together.

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There is another work that I did, a video.

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I made it in 2008 here is Paris,
and that was the moment when we left Paris.

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We lived here three years and a half.

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It's myself running.

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Living here but not really being from here
and then escaping from here

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but, in fact, running from myself.

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The very origin of autoconstrucción as a concept
is related to people making their houses as

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they can.

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It's not a method or technique or style,

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but it's more like about the social circumstance 
and the political circumstance.

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People have no money to buy an apartment or
a house at once.

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My father came to this land in the mid-'60s
after an invitation of one of his relatives.

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One of his cousins told him, "There is this
land there.

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Nobody's using it because it's so harsh."

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And his cousin sold him a piece of land,
and even when it was not for sale.

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There was nothing but rocks,
so he started something out of nothing.

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With the community, they started helping each
other

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to construct their houses, and, of course,

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they had no idea of architecture or construction
even.

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They were just improvising with the materials
they found.

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This was a big patio.

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There was a kitchen there.

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There was the bedrooms over there, and then
the entrance.

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There was a fence, a wooden fence.

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There was no proper street.

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It was only loosened earth or rocks.

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The exhibition at the Walker

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is not conceived as a retrospective.

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It's more like a selection of works
that are related to this idea of autoconstrucción.

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They have in common, I think, the will of
learning,

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and I think it's been always there in my work,

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this necessity of understanding.

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Understanding or dealing with the concept
autoconstrucción,

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it's also hard in Spanish, I would say.

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This is a work I call autoconstrucción:
the resource room in which there is references,

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like the history of Mexico, immigration to
the city.

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It's a sculpture that is growing.

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It's alive when people use it.

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There's lots of pictures of my neighborhood
from family archives.

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There is also some silk screens that I made.

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They are copies of original pamphlets and
fliers and posters

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from political movements in Latin America
from 1968 to now.

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I like that it's more like a didactic device.

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People can understand more about the context
of my autoconstrucción concept,

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things that are not necessarily related to
autoconstrucción,

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but in my mind, they were important for me

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in my education and my configuration
of the concept of autoconstrucción.

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(dog barking)

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(dog barking)

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(pair conversing in foreign language)

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My mother is the daughter of indigenous people.

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They lived in a very poor environment
near Tacubaya in Mexico city,

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so it was not new for her facing problems,
but it was worse.

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It was really a process

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of constructing our history

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together with others.

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It wasn't just about us.

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Here I earned what it is to be fraternal and to act in solidarity

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with these people, with this neighborhood.

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She had to transform herself, voluntarily
or not.

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And then she became an activist,
and then she became a stronger woman

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and a great example for all of us,
not only my family, but the neighbors as well.

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With other women, they became organizers of
the people,

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demanding the services,
like asking for water or sewage or electricity,

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and as a child, I witnessed this transformation.

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So the house, for me, is important because
of that.

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It's not only the formal appearance

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or the shapes it took in time according to
specific needs

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but also according to the transformation of
an ideology.

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This work is composed by a couple of videos.

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I made interviews with my parents separately
so they could give their own tale

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about the construction of the house.

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They had contradictory perceptions of reality.

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When I was a child, that was my perception
of being in between these two noisy things.

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(overlapping speech in foreign language)

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My father, he's dead now.

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I think his perception of reality
was pragmatic in many ways, looking at the

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landscape

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and describing the plants and the rocks as
something nice,

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and I think I identify myself with him.

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I look at things very much like him.

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And my mother is more about the struggle,
the fight,

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the corruption of the government, poverty.

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(overlapping speech in foreign language)

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I grew up with this kind of contradictory
version

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of reality, and I like that very much,

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and I accept the contradiction as myself,
as part of my identity, and I've been thinking

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more and more

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about this as an element of my work as well,
that I'm composed with contradictory and unstable

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elements.

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This space, we call it El Taller,
because my father used to paint here

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and to read and to listen to music,
and even when he stopped making paintings

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and sculptures,

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we kept calling it El Taller.

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So in a way, it was the heart of the house.

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He lived with the Franciscan people.

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He went there, not an orphan,
but as the son of a single mother.

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And then my grandmother took him as a child
there.

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He took the habits of the monk,
and he learned to play many instruments and

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to paint,

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and all the things he knew,
he learned it with the Franciscan people.

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I grew up as a Catholic, but I'm not anymore.

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But I understand, I think I understood
this essence of Christianism in love.

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He loved religion like he loved God
and the presence of God in everything.

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And I think that's why I also took
this sort of animism in my work.

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I associate it with other ways of thinking,
like Taoism.

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I think he had some reasons to leave the order,
but he loved, he loves, I mean I think, wherever

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he is,

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he loves Francisco and the life he had.

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My mother keeps some of the objects my father
did.

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He was more like a commercial painter.

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He made like hundreds of these paintings,
very similar, if not the same.

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He wasn't really trying to follow any trend
or style or anything but more like to produce

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objects

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to sell to get an income.

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On that wall there is a portrait of my mother
in the '60s.

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I think they have the same shape,
the mushrooms and the hairdo.

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(chuckles)

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Works I did in the early '90s,
like using my father's paintings,

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and so one of these works is included in the
show.

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It's called "Objeto Util Pero Bonito".

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It uses one of the handrails in a painting
by my father.

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That work, for me, is important
in terms of understanding my own identity

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and my context,

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and in a way, I was trying to put
every object possible in my work.

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It was like saying everything in the world
is alive,

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and everything can go together, like being
together,

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and as a metaphor for community as well.

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Here, the stairs, you can see they change
because it's for the wheelchair here.

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And then the shape, I like it very much.

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I think of it as a sculpture as well.

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But this is one of my favorite sculptures
of the house,

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which is this kind of groove
made by the wheel of the wheelchair.

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So it was carved in time,
for many, many years by my father's use.

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And then, because of this, I arrived to the
consciousness

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or the awareness of the autoconstrucción

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as an engine for my work,
as something that was in my soul and in my

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mind,

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but I didn't know.

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And then suddenly it's not that one night
I understood,

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but slowly I understood that there was something,

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a strong influence of my context in the art
I was making.

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(materials clattering)

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Sometimes I just play with the materials,
finding combinations.

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(hammering)

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Just taking whatever is at hand, not really
choosing,

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but thinking that any element can be used.

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And I think this is important, because it's
not about

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choosing because it looks better or not.

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That it can work in this community of things.

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(Abraham coughs)

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Things, they speak.

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(materials clattering)

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I try to find the balance among them.

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In a way, I'm making a self-portrait.

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Constantly, I

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make sculptures that are about to collapse.

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They are not technically okay.

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For instance, a collector,
if they want to collect something like that

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or keep them in their collection, they keep
a problem.

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It's something that you have to protect from
itself.

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This one, I cannot leave it here,
because it's across the door, and I have to

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close the door,

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and it's because there is a large element
that cannot fit in the studio.

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I would love to leave it like that
and show it like this in a museum, if possible,

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stopping the door,
like when you use a shoe to stop the door,

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using something like a tool, you know?

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Materials have different origins.

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This is dry meat.

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This is a piece of plant pot.

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This is one leg from a grill.

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This wood from beams from the house
that I renovated recently,

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so materials I use from the demolition,
so they have a proper history of their own,

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a long experience.

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This wood, it's like from late 19th century,
so it has lots of things to say.

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But there are things that are just new, like
these,

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that are maybe tasteless or they mean nothing,

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but at the end, everything works very well
together,

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and I like to use like these bottle caps

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from beer that I drink with friends.

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This is from my new pants
that I bought in New York last time,

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but they are too long because I'm not American
size,

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so it's always like trying to find

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extra large clothes for my belly,

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but I have to cut a lot of the legs, so this
is...

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I don't know.

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There's no real particular thing to say about
anything,

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but the whole thing speaks together,

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and that's nicer, I think.

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No, not finished.

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(chuckles)

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(ambient electronic music)

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To learn more about "Art in the Twenty-First Century"

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00:16:24,190 --> 00:16:25,944
and it's educational resources,

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00:16:25,944 --> 00:16:29,910
please visit us online at PBS.org/Art21

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"Art in the Twenty-First Century" is available on DVD

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To order, visit shopPBS.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS

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(ambient electronic music)