Art With a Needle: museums in South America

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Art in prison

If you need to lock people away in maximum security, one ever-popular approach is to build a prison at the end of the earth. The British did it in Tasmania, the Russians did it in Siberia, and the Argentinians did it in Ushuaia, at the very southern tip of the continent. The Ushuaia prison is now being used as a museum, and it’s one of the strangest places I’ve had the pleasure of looking at art.

Most of the huge building is used to document the history of the region and the prison, complete with creepy life-size papier-mache figures of famous inmates. One wing of the prison has become an art gallery, and some of the larger paintings got their very own cell for display.

Sergio Bocaccio, Regata 69

In places like Ushuaia you don’t get famous artists in the gallery, but many of the works were quite pleasant and I enjoyed the paintings a lot more than I did the gruesome reminders of the prison’s first life.

Sergio Bocaccio, Barrenada

Ana Kijajo, El mar II (reminds me of Franz Kline)

Monica Dal Maso, Lugares exoticos (Exotic places)

Hugo Caballero, Ciudad de la alegria (City of joy) (reminds me of a quilt)

And here’s my favorite little “is that art or is it lunch?” moment. It must be art, because they were made out of something hard and painted.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Pre-Columbian textiles

All fiber artists, no matter how contemporary their sensibilities and leanings, must have soft spots in their hearts for the magnificent ancient textiles that have survived, against all the odds, across the centuries in a few fortunate spots on the globe. I had the pleasure of seeing a treasure trove of such textiles recently in Santiago, Chile, at the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art.

Curiously, the museum has gathered artifacts from all the South and Central American civilizations, not just from the Andes. But most of the textiles were from Peru and Chile. I don't know enough about the various peoples and empires that succeeded each other in the pre-Columbian eras to distinguish among them, so I'll dispense with the geographical identifications and just tell you the dates.

Much of the Andes mountains is desert, and the low humidity has contributed to the remarkable longevity of these textiles. Considering how enthusiastically my jeans fray and disintegrate at the hem and how frequently I encounter a rotten piece of cloth in a flea market or old box, I am always amazed to see fabrics and garments that have hung on for millenia. Perhaps because the Inca didn't treat their yarns with formaldehyde for wrinkle-resistance.

I don't know enough about weaving to appreciate the nuances of technique, but I can savor the richness of the colors, the uniformity of the weave, the intricacy of the pattern. My photos may be marred by reflections from the glass, but I think you'll share my wonder and delight at these specimens.