Taxidermy and other feelings
My mom is an archaeologist and when She was a girl, she took me on her expeditions. When I was about 7 years old, we used to go to Hornaditas, (Quebrada de Humahuaca).
We were staying in a very precarious little ranch owned by a woman, who, on those adobe walls, as her only decoration had a huge “poster” of Perón, in profile. An omnipresent image in that little room full of vinchucas.
I suppose that since they were times of dictatorship, she always felt the need to explain that devotion. She told us that she loved him because he had always brought her sweet bread for Christmas, a sewing machine for her birthday and a children's day gift for her son. Excuse her, but she couldn't forget it.
Perón for me, could only be a wizard king, a magical being who could arrive on time with so much abundance of sweet bread.
I was convinced that Perón was an ekeko, because they are alike, that in reality that being who smokes on Fridays and is loaded with goods, desires and abundance is Perón. But obviously, no one said it because that mimesis was not talked about in those days.
First of all I wanted to tell you that this is a sample to talk about, there are cases of silent samples in which it seems that the best way to experience them is in silence, I think that this is not the case, I cannot look at one of these pieces without me make you want to comment, share.
This is a sample for evocation, for the "you remember" and for the "this looks like a ninja." Nonsense that one begins to say as one begins to feel the stories that grow inside one when looking at these porcelains. A sinister and familiar air, atrocious and at the same time common. Kind monsters we could play with. And from this recognition, we inevitably come to humor. As escape or salvation. This is a show brimming with humor.
Taxidermy is a trade that is exercised on a dead being, in order to maintain the appearance of being alive. Of course, this appearance requires the complicity of the viewer, no matter how upright or fierce we see the puma in the natural science museum, what we actually saw (and in this I evoke my childhood) was a confirmation of death.
Taxidermy and other feelings is a journey through our memories, through our history, and a challenge to rethink the angle from which we usually look at things. Roly Arias - Salta 2013
