Cuentos para la Infancia y el Hogar
Buenos Modales Series: Collages, variable sizes
Entrada / Salida: Acrylic boxes, variable sizes
Fiebre: Collage, Lenticular 3D, 100×120 cm.
Cuentos para la infancia y el Hogar Exhibition, Bsgr Arte Contemporáneo, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2010
Cuentos para la infancia y el Hogar (Children’s and Household Tales) is a series of collages that take selected elements used in my earlier work Sinfonías Tontas (2009), as well as an earlier series employing imagery from the Disney universe. In this new work, I focus on fairy tales, as well as cultural narratives drawn from folklore such as the Grimm Brothers in Germany. Unlike my earlier works, which focused on specific techniques, this series is predominantly graphic. The basic work material is illustrated children’s books, cut and recombined through the medium of collage.
For the purposes of this investigation, I was most interested in the pedagogical aspect of the images depicted in these stories. Almost all of the material I collected and processed for this work was published or edited in the 1970s and 80s. I found this content had a strong correlation to the “good manners” manuals of the early 20th century.
The characters are simple and archetypical: princesses, valiant princes, ogres, giants, dragons, trolls, evil stepmothers, false heroes, and fairy godmothers. The themes almost always revolve around a ban of some kind and the transgression of that ban, which is followed by a series of consequences for the defiant character. The grotesque and the strange coexist with the beautiful and the wonderful in an undefined place—a Neverland.
Following the moralistic tendencies of the Victorian era, which altered classic and frequently dark fairy tales by turning them into teaching lessons, these new stories with happy endings and clear morals became the norm and the reason for retelling them. In contrast, the objective of this project, as in most part of my work, is aimed at the formal as well as conceptual revision and destruction of this material.
[ read text for the exhibition* ]
*Only in spanish
