Abraham Cruzvillegas in "Legacy" - Season 7 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

(hammering)

ABRAHAM CRUZVILLEGAS: I went to the streets
in Paris

looking for materials from demolitions.

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

(materials clattering)

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

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

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

paths

between points, points that represent the
mind of Artaud.

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

and then I used Artaud's map of Paris

to make sculptures in the spots where he used
to go

to visit friends or to have a drink.

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

and I left the sculpture in the place.

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

I made it.

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

(hammering)

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

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

of course.

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

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

There is another work that I did, a video.

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

We lived here three years and a half.

It's myself running.

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

but, in fact, running from myself.

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

they can.

It's not a method or technique or style,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With the community, they started helping each
other

to construct their houses, and, of course,

they had no idea of architecture or construction
even.

They were just improvising with the materials
they found.

This was a big patio.

There was a kitchen there.

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

There was a fence, a wooden fence.

There was no proper street.

It was only loosened earth or rocks.

The exhibition at the Walker

is not conceived as a retrospective.

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

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

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

this necessity of understanding.

Understanding or dealing with the concept
autoconstrucción,

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

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

like the history of Mexico, immigration to
the city.

It's a sculpture that is growing.

It's alive when people use it.

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

There is also some silk screens that I made.

They are copies of original pamphlets and
fliers and posters

from political movements in Latin America
from 1968 to now.

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

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

things that are not necessarily related to
autoconstrucción,

but in my mind, they were important for me

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

(dog barking)

(dog barking)

(pair conversing in foreign language)

My mother is the daughter of indigenous people.

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

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

It was really a process

of constructing our history

together with others.

It wasn't just about us.

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

with these people, with this neighborhood.

She had to transform herself, voluntarily
or not.

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

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

With other women, they became organizers of
the people,

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

and as a child, I witnessed this transformation.

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

It's not only the formal appearance

or the shapes it took in time according to
specific needs

but also according to the transformation of
an ideology.

This work is composed by a couple of videos.

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

about the construction of the house.

They had contradictory perceptions of reality.

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

(overlapping speech in foreign language)

My father, he's dead now.

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

landscape

and describing the plants and the rocks as
something nice,

and I think I identify myself with him.

I look at things very much like him.

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

the corruption of the government, poverty.

(overlapping speech in foreign language)

I grew up with this kind of contradictory
version

of reality, and I like that very much,

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

more and more

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

elements.

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

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

and sculptures,

we kept calling it El Taller.

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

He lived with the Franciscan people.

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

And then my grandmother took him as a child
there.

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

to paint,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

he is,

he loves Francisco and the life he had.

My mother keeps some of the objects my father
did.

He was more like a commercial painter.

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

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

objects

to sell to get an income.

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

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

(chuckles)

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

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

It's called "Objeto Util Pero Bonito".

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

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

and my context,

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

It was like saying everything in the world
is alive,

and everything can go together, like being
together,

and as a metaphor for community as well.

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

And then the shape, I like it very much.

I think of it as a sculpture as well.

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

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

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

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

or the awareness of the autoconstrucción

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

mind,

but I didn't know.

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

but slowly I understood that there was something,

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

(materials clattering)

Sometimes I just play with the materials,
finding combinations.

(hammering)

Just taking whatever is at hand, not really
choosing,

but thinking that any element can be used.

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

choosing because it looks better or not.

That it can work in this community of things.

(Abraham coughs)

Things, they speak.

(materials clattering)

I try to find the balance among them.

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

Constantly, I

make sculptures that are about to collapse.

They are not technically okay.

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

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

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

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

close the door,

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

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

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

using something like a tool, you know?

Materials have different origins.

This is dry meat.

This is a piece of plant pot.

This is one leg from a grill.

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

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

a long experience.

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

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

that are maybe tasteless or they mean nothing,

but at the end, everything works very well
together,

and I like to use like these bottle caps

from beer that I drink with friends.

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

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

so it's always like trying to find

extra large clothes for my belly,

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

I don't know.

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

but the whole thing speaks together,

and that's nicer, I think.

No, not finished.

(chuckles)

(ambient electronic music)

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

and it's educational resources,

please visit us online at PBS.org/Art21

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

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

(ambient electronic music)