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

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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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    and it's educational resources,
  • 16:26 - 16:30
    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)
Title:
Abraham Cruzvillegas in "Legacy" - Season 7 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"Art in the Twenty-First Century" broadcast series
Duration:
16:54

English subtitles

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