Rodrigo Facundo, Juan F. Herrán y Doris Salcedo : to memory' s rescue

              \\ ¡lililí (iiildiiiliiaii ail > c l u i i a i i i ' i i s i i -
r : i l l \ - \ aiii'il laiigr ni .^iilijccl iiiallcr.
(•(•i'laiii arli^ls are lixai^iii"; DII iiiriiii)i'\ :
¡I i> a cDiiccni llial. Iidiii \ ariíjiiíi
(]iill(ic)kh. (•iila¡l> i d i i l r o i u i í i u a ciilliin'
iii wliiili aiiiiii'.--ia aiiil llic ICIUICIHA
lowai'd Idrjií'lliiii; | i i ( ' \ a i l . i lie (ili>c.-->iiin
willi iiiciiKiiN llial i> -^(1 ri(M|iiciilly líHiiiil
iii ciHilciiiiioiaix ail laii lii' | ) c i ( c i \ c il
íniiii ililIViciil |)iiiiil> (ií \ icw .
aiid llic ilircc ani-'i> ^clcclcil Inr ilii-.
i'ssa\ aic iiii|)(]itaiil (•\aiii|)lrs i>l llii'
I l l l l l l i | l l ¡ c i l \ ( ] | l l | ) l i l l l l >.
I liiwCN c'i'. all lliii'c s l i a í r lili-iiiiili'iK
iiin iii'cd 1(1 n'c(iii>iiliM' ilir pasl ^o
llial il iiiiiílil rcasi' liciiií; a iiicic
ri'lcri'iici' lii wlial lia^. alicaiK liappciicd.
I lii'ir iiwi^lciicc (111 lacliial IIICIIKIIA i^ iKil
a ^iiii|ilc zcal liir iccullciiioii. iior i-, diere
a searcli ídr rdiiiidaiidiial iiulli,-- and
iiii(|iichl¡i)iialile liiilli> di lile i ( i l l e c l i \ i'
iilicdiiscidiis. I he ¡.^^iie lieic i> Id
cdiiipiclieiid. Id iiiake dliiers coiilin-eiieiid
a n d lo lieeoine awai'c (il lile (•d(le>
aecordiiii; id whicli ilieir ^inrdiindiiií:
sdcieu is -.iiiicluicd. a Micielx ¡n wliicli
\ idleiice ÍM a (laiK lacl (il lile.
iii ii'uidii.s |ii'essined l>\ mierilla
w a i l a r e . p a i a i i i i l i l a i \ ídice-. a n d llie
diiiii li'ade. il i> \ c r \ diHi(aill Ki r e p á r a le
lile p i i \ a l e Icdiii lile pnlilie spaee.
\ idlenee a l l e e i s e \ c i \ hCcKir oí SdcieU as
an e \ ( ' r \ ( l a \ e\ciil. erealinu: llie risk llial
lile siliialidii iiiiulil lireed indillerence
a n d niiiiiil lie eoiihideicd iialiilna!.
Iii e d i i r n a u i n u all (il lilis. I'aciiiidd.
I l e i i á i i a n d S a l i c d d presenl a i l i s l ie
icspiiiises dial are lar íniiii
lldllld^('lledll^. iiidiealiim die dillerenl
\ \ a \ s iii \\liicli liie\ cdiidnel llieir
reí leed di I s w hile experieneiiii; a single
en\ iidiinienl.
I V O N N E PINl
Hddriiiii l a e i n i d d . w lid was hdin in
lliaüiií'. ( d l d i n l i i a . in l''->í). lias e e n i r ed
liis wdi'k a r d i i n d a single llieine:
a inedilalidii oii llie ediirigiiralion iií
¡iidi\ idiial a n d cdlleclixc n i e i n o i s.
Il is an issne dial ediilinnes Ki lie liiiked
Id aii iiiipiirlant I .aliii \iiierieaii
ediieern: lile seiise iil i d e i i l i u .
W llal is llie relalidii lielwceii lile
ii(Ilion di w a i n i í i g 1(1 kiidw w lio wc are
a n d lile i n a n n e r in w liielí wc liaiidle
nienidix ? I liis is llie (|iieslidn dial
appeai's repealedK as an inideríairreiil
di his cdiiicpi nal Idrinnlalidiis. And
realilN in liiiii liecdines a spaee lor ihe
reediisiriieddií ol a Wdiid in wliieh he
o l i s e r \ e s liiith liis owii ¡iidi\ idiialils
(as wcll as llie inediinn in whiell he is
i i n n i e r s e d ) . ualheriiiu diese resoiirees
iiild aii areliivc wliere he sKires
lile rescning. recdiilexliialisiiig iinages.
In lile e a r l \ '•() s his p a i n l i n gs
liei^an In i n i n i d i i e e IligliK-leMiiial
s n r l a e e s dial iiK reasinuK ineorpdraled
plioldgrapliN . l a e i n i d o assiimes llie
p h d l o g r a p l i i e iiiiage Ki lie a r e l l e d i d ii
di lile pasl. reeallinu Sii-.aii Sdiilag s
s l a i e i n e n l ihal ".MI pliiildgraphs are
iiioiiii'iih) iiiiiri. I (I lake a phdldgraph
is Id p a r l i e i p a l e in llie i n o r l a l i l s.
\ nhieraliililN and i i n n n i l a l i i l i u ol'
sonieiine (ir s d i n e l h i im else , I lie\
repicsenl an (ippdrliiiiil\ id scize a gi\('ii
nidineiil. 1(1 r e \ e a l lile pas^age (il lime,
a n d (ilíer llie dual (ipliiin (il lieiiig eillier
a preseiiee (ir a iiiein(ir\. In addilidii.
llie\ alldw liddi a \ c a r i i i i i g íiir a nd
a reeoiislrnelion ol a i i d l h e r r e a l i u.
I'lie\ are lile iiiark lel'l li\ an iiislanl
dial has alreaiK passed. 10 e\iike. Id
iceiird ainliignoiis lornis. Id lliink IKIW
exciil-.. are lillered in oiir ineinor\ — wilh
llic-e eapaliililies pli(iiograpli\ is alile
reeoiislrnel a r e a l i u dixcrgenl íroni llie
(iriginal e\ciil.
In lile l ' ) ' ) l series In.sldiilcs r
hiii'lliix he eoniliines Iwd eleinenls
I r e i g l n e d w iih ineaiiing ~ phdtdgraplix'
a n d unid - and inakes (ihjeels dial seek
Id alli'cl diir seiisi's direelK . B\
eoneealiiig lile pliol(igra|ihie proeesses.
he leads llie s p e e l a l i i r lo re~eiieoiiiiler
llieiii. Idsl in lile a e e i d e n l s ol llie niiid.
wliere ari hisKirieal persdiiages lldiirisli
aldiig willi aii(iii\ nidiis lignres and
n a l i i r a l d i s a s l e r s a r e r e l r i e \ c d li\
pliol(igrapli\ s iiieiiior\ Iroin assnred
(ilili\i(iii. \ l o r e d \ c r . he e.xannnes
p a i i i l i i ig s i i a d i l i d i i a l siippdil slriielnre
( e a i u a s a n d íranie) as wcll as llie
Iradilidiial lools oí pieiorial
represeiilalidii (dil and liriish. e l e . ).
l i l e seiise di a í n i i e r a r \ siie. di loss
a n d di e l a l i o r a l e g r i e \ i n g . is speeilied
inore d i a p h a n o n sK in Luz ¡M'r¡/(iii(i
•~~._t—Ju™ jt-—*r—•
from 1992. Death, violence and the
memory of disappeared persons have
become a constant for those who live
and sufíer through dailv existence
in Colombia. Facundo atteinpts lo
sublímate the quotidian and to see it in
a more poetic light. to reorganise it by
recomposing the fragmenta from
memorv. He covers photographs with
a diffusing layer of wax and then places
them into small uiches that were lined
up in a row. as in a cemetery. Memori,'
and the past became present in our
perception.
In the photographic seqiiences Luz
perpetua and IOS (2). the supporting
material begins to crack, deteriorating
with the passage of time, and - as in Ufe
- all that remains are the emotive
qualities draped by the present onto
static images of the past. But at the
same time there is a play of anibiguous
shapes; the wax functions as a filter.
recovering the event as memory and
inducing the spectator to rescue. yet
again. the events of the past via the
photographic sequence. Photography
changes meaning: it is no longer the
indifferently-observed newspaper image
showing acts of violence. The wav the
negatives are printed onto the mud
piales steers us toward a different
analysis. The static presence of an
anonymous face strives to incite the
spectator to share the already-coUective
grief.
Perhaps recalling Baudrillard's
meditations on objects, in 1993 Facundo
began to mix common objects with
anonymous figures. His Objetos
melancólicos are cut-out figures, printed
on paper and covered with wax and
intermingled with houseplants. Hanging
against the wall thev give a sense
of fragility, of lightness and of potential
disappearance. A varietv of objects such
as revolvers, bones and picture frames
are camouflaged and alinde to violence.
both inside and outside the home.
Violence permeates the atmosphere:
death and hisiory are spoken of. The
things that accompany man are there.
as are his memory and the niarks he has
made. Photography assists him in
deepening the meaning and finiction of
common objects, but at the same time it
allows him to reconstnict histor\' - death
itself is ultimately recognisable in objects
that serve as invitations to
medita tion.
In 1995 he returned to painting.
Working with large canvases and
availing himself of various techniqíies.
he returned to an emphasis on the
passage of time, on the fragmented
rescue of remembrance and on the
recovery of memorv. Photographv does
not relinquish its central role, and in
works such as El rey de los animales
he indudes enlarged photographic
images that are based on images drawn
from the religious iconography of the
colonial period. And since memory itself
is rescue, is uot-forgetting, he begins to
introduce them into the contemporary
era. The fragments of different images
that affecl it are placed in a new
context. a coinext in which there is an
ampie mix of reality, the subconscious
and coUective memory.
FOT Facundo, hivestigating
memory is the path bv which to
approach his comitry. his city and his
surroundings, reconstructing reality not
in order to genérate mimetic visions but
rather in search of answers to essential
questions.
Historical and cultural memory
constitute an ever-present dualitv in the
work of Juan Femando Herrán. who was
born in Bogotá in 1963; he enters into
issues of identitv with an attitude that
resembles that of an archaeologist.
Beginning with the objects he made at
the end of the 'SO's. Herrán explores
the potential of clay. a material in itself
infused with historv. He shapes it with
his eyes closed in order to lénd the
tactile aspect prioritv. thus leaving
the mark of his fingers on irregular,
expressive tools. The resulting objects
are, to some extent. a Pre-Columbian
allusion, but the allusion's function is far
removed from that ot the original.
The aggression of the mediimí offers a
peculiar perspective: it is possible to be
an active or passive subject in relation
to these unsettling tools which arouse
latent. not explicit, feelings in the
spectator.
They suggest Pre-Columbian
forms yet they also suggest instruments
of torture, and Herrán appeals
referentially to memorv so that the
spectator's appraisal might be kept
open. Herrán does not attempt to
denounce. but rather, with neither
stridency ñor outbursts. to reveal
objects as responses to the space that
generated them. This dual reading also
extends to the chosen material:
imcooked clay brings to mind the
cultures of the past, vet at the same
time is so fragüe that its condition
is that of an ephemeral object.
While in London dtirins the 90's,
he began investigating historical ineinon-bv
means of objects made and presented
as fossilised elements of present-dav
civilisation: in this age of disposability
and industrial poisoning. he took
advantage of non-conventional materials
such as bones and hair.
Keeping in mind the relation
between man and nature. his interest
was directed toward the Thames
and the other lost rivers of London.
over which the citv has gro\Mi and
which, uhimately. have been enclosed
and channeled into sewers as part
of a sewage svsteni that robs thetn
of their essential function.
l'sing photography. drawings and
text. Herrán attemps to trace the history
that lies hidden behind this
conceairnent. He reconstructs the routes
of these domesticated elements of
nature. using photographs of locations
that were formerly important points of
communication and today are no more
than simple markers closed by heavy
lids that conceal their initial parpóse.
And he uses drawings in order to
transfer the canal maps onto the wall.
showing US the current state of these
repressed routes. The texts that are
meticulously integrated into the other
elements are by John Hollingshead. who
in 1862 compiled descriptions of the
sewage system's tunnels that coincide
with the rivers" routes. The texts are
marked by the peciiliarity of, on the one
hand. being highly technical. while on
the other hand digressing into physical
descriptions that include smell, colour
and sound.
The questions raised by Herrán in
this investigation are not directed
toward a study of nature as landscape.
but rather toward the looming threat of
urban growth. represented in mankinds
insistence on distorting nature's
fimctions. He directs his gaze toward
nature in order to repostulate its
traditional role as aesthetic object and
source of beainv. forsaking the concept
of landscape as a point of encounter
between man and place.
While the river serxes as the basis
from which to critique repression, it also
functions as a source for materials.
He took the bones he found there and
gathered them together, creating a ball
of bones that become a sort of
compendium of cultural references.
His specific circumstances - a Latin
American in a place to which he had
been attracted but in which he felt
himself a stratiger - strengthened
a tendencv in his work; the powerful
hand-made component surrounding
each of his objects and installations gives
credit to a constant in our niidst - that
not only the manual element holds
importance but also the marked
tendency of things to be recvcled and
to acquire functions that differ from the
original ones. The ball of bones was
used in an installation in London (ínter
faeces et nrínain iiascimur. 1993) and
was the central component of the project
sent to the 1994 Ha vana Biennial.
After a careful studv of marine
currents, he projected the ideal route
by which the bones might reach Havana.
He then placed them in a suitable
container and laimched it into the sea.
Entitled Lat 50" 02'N. Lorig5" 40' W.
the project included drawings
of the ideal route, texts and photos
of the launching and of the eventual
disappearance of the container bearing
the ball of bones. carried beyond the
horizon by favourable currents. The
texts were taken from a 19th-centur\'
navigation manual that describes the
optimum route between Land's End
on English coast and Havana. An object
containing elements of a city's cultural
memory was going from the edge of
Europe to America, but this time the
process pertained to a Latin American,
hoping to arrive symbolically at a place
from which others hope to flee.
Since his return to Bogotá in 1996,
his investigations have retumed to a
local subject that has sparked
commotion and controversy on the
national level: known as the 8000
process. it refers to individuáis in the
public sphere who were accused
of accepting contributions from drug
dealers during the last presidential
election campaign.
Herrán scrutinised the existing
information in newspapers and
magazines in order to trace the events
and hone in on a single aspect: the
moment of the cash delivery. Since there
is no visual testimony of the event.
he reconstructs the images of a historie
event for which no record exists. Again,
the work investigates reality in ordei- to
trausfonn it into fiction. He prepared a
scenario in which the concept
of representation is closely related to
cinema and staging. The representation
holds the dual condition of being real
(in that it is based on events that
occurred) while becoming fiction
(the staging of visual testimony that
does not in fact exist).
Despite Herráns perpetual
receptivity to change (which sometinies
presents obstacles to the coiirse of his
career), his work maintains aii
idemifying constant: it revolves around
a consideration of cultural and historie
meniory, a premise which thus far has
been given primacy among the artist's
conceptual concerns.
Since the time that Doris Salcedo
(born in Bogotá in 1958) was awarded
a prize at the 31st Salón de Artistas de
Colombia in 1987, a Une of investigation
can be traced at the centre of her work:
that is, preventing coUective amnesia
from forgetting the violence that reigns
in Colombia. This attempt is undertaken
with the clear consciousness of not being
limited to "showing the violence" as an
inherent Coloinbian condition - and is
therefore difficult to modify. Her
attitude goes beyond creating a direct
impact with the image and makes
suggestions so that the observer might
recognise him or herself, if not in full.
at least in certain aspects of daily Ufe.
Salcedo's frequent trips to the
Colombian regions where violence is felt
in its crudest forms has allowed her to
establish a direct relation with the
victims, with their environment and with
their objects. This attitude of Ustening
and empathising makes it possible for
her to recognise others' circumstances,
to understand them and to transform
them into images. Thus, intuition goes
hand-in-hand with the theoretical
investigation that precedes the actual
execution of her sculptures.
Salcedo's work. with its marked
political content, strives for a inemory-based
meditation on violence. Her
definition of art as condensed experience
(3) is filled with deep historie nieaning.
The individual history of each person
who protagonises an act of violence is
intertwined with the histories of the rest
of the coinmunitys members in places
where public and prívate spaces are
difficuk to sepárate. Her aesthetic
venture is based on the conviction that
in order to develop an ethical
consciousness, representation must
be used as a political subject (4). And
despite being based in such a specific
médium. Salcedo creates images that
allow her to appeal to the idea of
suffering and death, not only in the
restricted arena that inspires the work
but also when projected onto other
situations that have suffered loss, the
pain of uprooting and coUective grief.
Thus her objects are taken froin the real
world and could belong to any of us;
her chairs, eradles, cots, bureaus and
doors awaken a painful exercise
in the observer's niemory. No observer
can remain indifferent; these are life's
fragments, these are archives of
individuáis who lived and felt and now
are no more. Salcedo's sculptures
become risky invitations toward
exploration and each will be
approached, regardless of location, from
an inquiry into one's own memory.
An invitation to share an experience is
a way of breaking the silence with which
the dead and disappeared tend to be
forgotten. For Salcedo, stimulating
memory is a way of provoking a
discussion on the subject, of recognising
its existence, of reconstructing its history
into a present reality.
There has been an appreciable
change in her working method in
the 90"s. Work from the 80"s took
objects that alluded to the human bodv
(hospital beds, eradles, benches)
and manipulated them with organic
materials in order to créate the
suggestion that violence had taken place.
In the 90's, her approach to the recovery
of violence has changed. While still
working with recovered objects, she has
eutered into more direct contact with
the victims' famiUes, and to the earlier
objects objects she has added drawn
from domestic environments. Tables,
chairs and clothing are carefuUy covered
with cement; the object is present but its
function has disappeared. It becomes
a mute witness to experience that will
never again be felt; it is a space that can
not be inhabited. And thus it involves us
in the contemporary problem of exile
and displacement caused by violence,
both of which are determining
phenomena for a significant portion
of today's society.
Disappearance and displacement
caused by violence are aspects that
Salcedo has elaborated on during the
90's. Two key works from this period
are Atrabiliarios and La Casa Viuda.
In the first, Salcedo attempts to shatter
the anonymity of those who have
disappeared, based on the perspective
of those who have suffered the losses.
In niches carved out along the length of
a wall, she placed shoes that belonged to
victims of indiscriminate violence. Each
niche is then covered with the skin of an
animal bladder that is sewn to the wall.
The opaque material hinders visión into
the interior of the niche, which is filled
with the blurrv outlines of multitudinous
shoes; the floor is lined with empty
boxes also made of animal materials.
These shoes, rescued from anonymity,
remind us that they had a function, that
they belonged to someone, that they are
family reUcs: real presences in the face
of absence. They help us remember that
the person who used them once had
a family and a place: they remain as
testimony to a forced separation. These
women's shoes directly invoke
the drama of loss, summoning up not
anonymous nuinbers but rather the
reality that forces many people to Uve
with the memory of an absent body
in a way that converts objects into
dramatic witnesses of loss.
The goal here is to show not
violence, but rather its effects. The
subject emerges from cold statistics in
order to become part of the ritual of
grief, of the recuperation of memory.
What is being dealt with here is not
"la Violencia" in some vague fashion,
hke an epidemic of illness which must
be accepted with Christian resignation.
Salcedo's goal is to provoke, since her
work strives to confront both the
acceptance of death as redemption as
well as the passive role played by art
spaces (galleries and museums) that
content themselves with being
depositories of oblivion. The enclosed
shoes transform the museum into
a more prívate place, into a place
of commemoration, not so much for the
dead as for those who survivc and must
assimilate the absence. They are
a reflection of common history and
common memory; it is a memory that
struggles against forgetting, that is
political, that refuses to cultívate
nostalgia but instead seeks to bring into
the present the fact that these events
happened and continué happening.
Atrabiliarios insists that the horror lies
not only in the violent fact but also in
its forgetting, or in the resigned
acceptance that considers it
a irremediable event. At issue here is not
memory as a means of subsequent
forgetting; at issue here is helping
raise consciousness and reinforcing
memory.
La Casa Viuda seeks to describe a
wav of Ufe in violent áreas where there is
no possibility of having a place of one's
own. People are dragged from their
homes and murdered in front of their
families, or in other cases must emigrate
in an attempt to save their Uves. The
objects inhabitíng the space of La Casa
Viuda refer to the role of refuge,
of shelter, which once belonged to the
house and was lost. The museum
becomes an abandoned place. As
Salcedo states: ""La Casa Viuda makes
precarious use of space, what Smithson
called a nonsite; in other words, a transit
zone which cannot be inhabited.
Repositioning the sculptures in the space
is a way of re-working memory. It is an
approach to the spectator's
consciousness, to disappearance and
forced displacement, emphasising
absence with dissipating images." (5)
Absence refers here to the
occupied and abandoned place, and the
retrieved objects that oceupy it do not
suggest the presence but rather the
absence of those who were once the
objects' users, The fumishings reveal
the traces of violence and are
transformed into commemorative
spaces that seek to lend art an ethical
quality that might allow the
establishment of a sensibilitv different
from that which causad the crisis.
History is not brought to a standstill,
as is the case with most monuments;
history is made problematic, and in
this sense the works are anti-monuments.
With the same tenacity that is
found in all her work, Doris Salcedo
creates art out of the painful facets
of Colombian Ufe, seeking to make work
that might relate the experiences
undergone by those who have suffered
violence directly; it is an approach free
from vindication or denuciation, and
which tries to understand, through
empathy, what it means to have suffered
the effects of violence. Working with
small events and common objects. the
sculptures overtum the necessity
of personal familiarity with the
situation. With them she constructs
images that are not mere testimony but
rather the memory of a reality that the
observer tries - whether consciously
or unconsciously - to ignore.
NOTKS
(1) Siisan Sontag. On Photogmphy. Spaiiish
liuiislation. Sobre la fotografía. Ed.
Surlamcricana, Buenos Aires, 1977. p. 'i!j.
(2) Tlie title refers to the 108 pólice otficers killed
in MedeUín. and the work iitiHses photographs
from daily newspapers.
(3) Conversation between tlie aiithor and Doris
Salcedo. August 1906.
(4) Charles Merewether: Doris Salcedo in the
catalogue for the exhibition Ante América,
Bogotá. 1902. p. 161.
{'•>) Conversation with Doris Salcedo, Natalia
Gutiérrez. Ari ¡Xexus. No. 10. p. 49.