ABRAHAM CRUZVILLEGAS

‘Esperanza’ (2003), on loan from the collection of Craig Robins pairs what appears to be two turtle shells one atop the other, pressed belly to belly, and suspended by a bouquet of galvanized steel rods. Like the detritus from a construction site, or ecological disaster, the work pairs industrial forms with natural ones, which are caught in a tense dance to form an amalgamated totem. 

Abraham Cruzvillegas’s artistic process is deeply influenced by his surroundings; rather than being defined by a particular medium, many of his projects are linked by the platform autoconstrucción: a concept that draws from the ingenious, precarious, and collaborative building tactics implemented by the people living in Colonia Ajusco, his childhood neighborhood in Mexico City. He appropriated this term in relation to his practice to describe an approach of inventive improvisation and instability which presents change as a permanent state arising from the chaotic and fragmentary nature of life. The evolving notion of autoconstrucción has in turn yielded different approaches such as autodestrucción and autoconfusión. These inquiries have led him to explore his own origins and to collaborate with family and friends in a very personal form of research that results in a constant process of learning: About materials, landscape, people, and himself.