UNTIL SUNDAY 14/6
VAT. Guillem de Castro, 118
White of the Tower, the director of the IVAM, He shows his cards and puts them on the table in an exhibition – designed in collaboration with museums from neighboring territories – that pivots on the axes of his project.: heritage, sustainability and territory. Indeed, In half light takes a tour of our Mediterranean cultural heritage and focuses on those arts considered minor, or not considered arts at all, but unmeritorious domestic craftsmanship, also made with “poor” materials such as clay, esparto, ceramics, lana, textiles, natural fibers or basketry. And therefore, suitable for women (note the irony). The fact is that they are mostly the ones who are rescuing these traditional trades and knowledge that were lost with urbanization., industrialization and the proliferation of plastic during the last century. The artists of the “periphery” storm the noblest room of the urban IVAM to reclaim the natural and the rural, fleeing from romanticization and that nostalgia for the past that can be so annoying.
Many of the artists who exhibit in In half light They have developed their pieces in community. Pilar Albarracin, For example, She works with groups of embroiderers who make pieces like the banner that hangs at the IVAM with the word “Guapa!” embroidered in the traditional way. Here embroidery leaves the intimate and domestic to also operate as a political language.. Another example is that of Josefina Guilisasti, that presents a piece—the most striking, perhaps—made in collaboration with twelve artisans from the Rari community of Chile, recognized for their mastery of horsehair weaving. With this technique they have created pieces that pay tribute to the Monarch butterfly, symbol of fragility and persistence, for being able to execute one of the longest migrations in the world, from Mexico to Canada. Sonia Navarro also works collectively, with women who keep esparto manufacturing alive in their native Murcia, where he experienced first-hand the decline of this industry. She learned to sew with her mother., his aunts and his grandmothers, and redefines this ancient craft made with natural fibers as a political gesture and a tribute to the knowledge associated with the home and care.. Uses sewn esparto grass in the work Espartaria V (2024), a paint mix, sculpture and tapestry. It also incorporates esparto Ana Laura Aláez, braiding plant fibers that evoke strands of hair in the piece Row of betrayals. Finally, Jessica Stockholder, known for transforming everyday objects into chromatic and spatial architectures, has collaborated with Mallorcan artisans who work traditional techniques such as llatra (braided with palm leaves) to create Cardinal directions (2025), a suspended structure, composed of baskets, nets and ropes.
They are all artists who look at their context and create from it. Isabel Servera has restored her grandmother's palmetto sewing machine—the only palm tree native to the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands—to create baskets that evoke organic shapes. Ricardo Calero create sculptures with overlapping baskets (wicker, esparto, mud and plaster) that contain words; while Ana Esteve Lawrence uses natural materials such as hemp, cotton and beeswax, dyed with pigments from plants from various geographies, in minimalist pieces that are half sculpture, medium painting. Martha Font collects soil from his native Serra de Tramuntana to create containers (or) imperfect and rooted to the earth, Julie C. Fortier hangs from the ceiling a monumental necklace made of hollow porcelain and glass beads that contain and disperse aroma of humid undergrowth, Adriana Meunie In his sculptures he claims the beauty of wool and the jobs of shepherd and shearer., y Nuria Riaza puts clay into dialogue with embroidery. Reinterprets the family trousseau by collecting their own land to make the clays, She applies ancestral processing techniques and turns pieces on which she sews embroidery patterns taken from table linens and bedding from the family trousseau.. S.M.
