Resilienta
Selva Roja
Chaupiñamca
Lanzarota / Barna
Lanzarota
Barna
Dorotea
Peregrinaciones de una paria
Carolina Bazo’s video works present us with enigmatic scenes that seem to come from a parallel world, like snippets of an eerie ritual devoid of any context. No narrative cue to these solitary actions taking place in nondescript locations is offered. What are we to make of them?
In the videos we see the artist quietly performing various simple tasks lik walking, crawling, standing still, etc., in places like the desert, a busy highway, the beach, the ocean. To the overall feeling of strangeness adds the fact that Bazo appears dressed in bizarre monochromatic clothes shaped like large geometric figures that partially conceal her body—costumes that recall the dehumanized silhouettes of the experimental ballets of early 20th century—. Even more disconcerting is seeing the artist nonchalantly popping eggs or spilling milk from her mouth in some of the works.
Bazo’s costumes are plain yet bold, and while in their weirdness they appear as cryptic as the minimal, almost expressionless gestures and movements of the artist, they offer us an interpretative hint to her work. Each costume involves a shape that in different ways narrows down the artist’s range of movements, without entirely determining them. Sometimes these shapes look like a burden to be carried (Pilgrimages of a Pariah), other times they come into view as a physical impediment (Patterns), as an appendage of the body (Mothers of the Desert), and even as an adaptive feature that enables certain actions (Patterns). In addition, there are elements that bring to mind maternity, like milk and eggs (Mothers of the Desert and Patterns, respectively).
It is thus that the artist simultaneously evokes and critiques societal mores, gender roles, and cultural habits, presenting them as something external (like so many outfits) that nevertheless models our behavior. Additionally, sometimes the costumes clearly stand out against their backdrop, while at others they blend with it, depending on their particular shapes and tonalities. The use of color inversions (Pilgrimages of a Pariah) further exploits the ambivalence of these figure/ground relations, which hint at the uncertainty we might experience before the vital crossroads we all face now and then. The span of choice that opens before us encompasses risk and possibility, as much as security and routine—something suggested by the use of recurring bodily movements and similar scenarios. Here repetition and constancy testify to the inexorable passing of time.
Carolina Bazo’s video works allude to the ways in which we negotiate with our environments, at times adapting to them, at others resisting them, even seeking to transform them or reinstate them. But perhaps, they are chiefly about endurance of a peculiar kind: one that is not just physical, but above all psychological, and emotional, and which is at the core of life itself: perseverance and preservation reaffirmed.
Max Hernández-Calvo
La Porfiada Roly-Poly
Mothers of the Desert
Patrones I
A character with her face covered by a red cloak and her body wrapped in a white blanket forming a peculiar geometric configuration, stands in the middle of a berm dividing a heavily traveled road; her dehumanized silhouette ripples in the wind. Her reckless quietness defies the street’s agitation and violence.
Another character, this time with her face uncovered, standing on the shore of the sea, evokes a sort of strange bishop or a surreal image of a nun. The character spits milk in a gesture with maternal, sexual and confrontational overtones, swims into the sea and disappears from our sight.
In this briefly described video-performance, Bazo’s characters are also abstract forms, symmetrical figures whose silhouette mark their actions. In a way, the forms themselves “perform.” Bazo alludes to sewing, design and behavioral patterns. Each form limits the possibilities of action: it limits or facilitates certain movements and responses to the environment. In that sense, rather than hiding, her costumes / disguises reveal the vital crossroads of these characters.
These silhouettes are repeated throughout the exhibition in a series of ceramic pieces (sculptures, plates and tiles) that exploit the background / figure relationships and the idea of repetition and difference—a constant in Bazo’s work. Many of the variations of these figures resemble human forms. In the ceramic plates decorated with these figures, some silhouettes are revealed to be visibly feminine. Framed in these utilitarian objects, an ornamental role in a domestic setting is suggested—one of so many patterns, roles, and places assigned in the social fabric.
Through design variations, the tiles invite a drift of formal associations, where the silhouettes can be read as references to: female bodies, body parts (noses, mouths, ears, vulvas, phalluses, etc.), accessories (pendants, medals, etc.), decorative objects (trophies, sculptures, ornaments) and household items (bottles, vases, candle holders). The idea of a pattern is doubly emphasized here: by the silhouette of the figure engraved on the tile and by the contour of the tile itself, which is highlighted in its relationship with the wall and with the other tiles. The whole installation constitutes a large inventory of forms that, in its own way, is also an alphabet of social and behavioral protocols.
The installation of ceramic sculptures works with these same silhouettes, which are cut and hinged in pairs in such a way that they become a three-dimensional element that breaks the figure / background dyad, “extracting” the figure from the background and turning it into an independent element. However, in the encounter between these cut-outs there are gaps and figures within figures—a sort of dialectic of presences and absences.
Arranged on iron pedestals, these figures resemble tailor mannequins, evoking the idea of models and by extension of a wardrobe—the silhouettes themselves evoke the costumes that appear in the video-performance. In that sense, Carolina Bazo suggests that our vestments are inseparable from our own (vital) performance and, although our costumes, roles and scenarios are familiar to us, they are no less disconcerting and less arbitrary than hers.
