4:30 pm Thursday, 3 November 2016
Exhibition opening
Cabello / Carceller A Present Without Memory: A/O (Céspedes Case)
Alcove Gallery (photos) and Rufus Jones Study (video), Magill Library
Artists' talk —
A Present Without Memory: rediscovering Céspedes Case
(talk will be in English)
Philips Wing, Magill Library
The exhibition will be on view 3 November - 9 December 2016.
Exhibition and artists' talk are free and open to the public.
Inspired by the Spanish Inquisition case of the trans male and African-Hispanic surgeon, Eleno de Céspedes (1545?-159?), Cabello / Carceller's project is an extended meditation on the documents charging Céspedes with "contempt for the marriage sacrament" following his wedding to a female beloved. Using color photography and video, the artists deploy the trope of the photographer's gaze by recalling Thomas, protagonist of Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966). In A/ O (2010) the photographer-researcher is named Alex, whose own gender remains unspecified. In the video we see him/ her walking around the gardens of Seville's CAAC (Center for Contemporary Andalusian Art), trying to find the right locations for a film about Céspedes's life. "In this way, two narratives merge in the video, bringing an apparently distant history in time to our present realities" (Cabello / Carceller, A/ O, Artists' Statement, see below).
Cabello / Carceller are Madrid-based artists (Helena / Ana) who have exhibited internationally. Their work has been featured in celebrated group shows, ranging from the Brooklyn Museum's Global Feminisms (2007) to the Spanish Pavilion of the most recent Venice Biennale (2015). Their solo retrospective, "Draft for an Untitled Exhibition," is currently on view at MARCO (Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo, Spain) and will travel next to CA2M (Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Comunidad de Madrid). Manuel Segade, CA2M curator, characterizes Cabello / Carceller's practice as follows:
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Artists' Statement:
[English Version, Spanish Below]
A/O (Céspedes Case) approaches from a contemporary perspective the life of Elena/o de Céspedes, who was born in Granada and spent his/her life between Andalusia and Castile during the 16th Century, and who, being born a slave and mixed race woman, ended up living as a man and working as a surgeon, a job that was reserved for men at the time. In the video, Alex, our un-gendered contemporary character, is traversing the gardens of the CAAC Centre for Contemporary Art, trying to find the right locations for a film about Céspedes's life. Alex somehow recalls Thomas, the photographer in the film Blow Up, dressed in similar shirt and trousers and continuously walking around with apparently no clear objective or destination; but at the same time, his/her Mediterranean and sexually undefined complexion are reminiscent of Céspedes. Antonioni’s film is also an adaptation of Cortázar’s tale Las babas del diablo (The Devil's Drool, translated to English in 1967 as Blow-up), and both narratives confront the space of representation and the photographic device with the gaze, all of them elements that hang over this project.
In A/O (meaning the feminine and masculine endings in Spanish gendered words), Alex starts observing everything around, looking for the best places to fit a story that seems to have been imposed, like any other. But along the video, our character’s gaze turns more and more introspective, especially when the similarities with Céspedes's mestizo identity become increasingly evident for him/her. In this way, two narratives merge in the video, bringing an apparently distant history in time to our present realities. The project suggests different readings about gender questions in contemporary societies; it also opens a space for reflection about the role that slavery and race have played in the construction of the Spanish identity during its colonial period, pointing at their absence from the space of representation, and offering some clues to explore the modes of construction of our imaginaries. Initially A/O was designed to include a publication, which finally could not see the light of day, and that would serve as a tool to be used in an educational context (secondary school and university). Three essays to accompany the project were produced for this purpose: a text by Aurelia Martín Casares analyzes the situation of slaves in Andalusia during the time when Céspedes lived, another text by M. José Belbel about the bibliography on Céspedes, and finally a survey on the presence of slaves and sexual dissidences in the Spanish pictorial representation by art historian Sergio Rubira.
[Spanish Version.]
A/O (Caso Céspedes) se acerca desde una perspectiva contemporánea a la vida de un personaje histórico apenas conocido, Elena/o de Céspedes, granadina/o que vivió entre Andalucía y Castilla en el S. XVI y que, habiendo nacido mujer mulata y esclava, terminó viviendo como hombre, casándose por la iglesia con otra mujer y ejerciendo como cirujano. En el vídeo, Alex, un personaje actual cuyo género permanece indefinido a lo largo de la filmación, se encuentra desarrollando una investigación de campo para seleccionar los exteriores donde se rodará una película sobre Céspedes. Los espacios que recorre son los jardines del Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo en el que se filmó el vídeo. Por su atuendo y movimientos, Alex nos recuerda a Thomas, el fotógrafo protagonista de la película Blow Up, que pasea por un parque sin un aparente destino final; pero sus rasgos mediterráneos y su indefinición de género nos acercan a Céspedes. La película de Antonioni es a su vez una adaptación del relato Las babas del diablo de Cortázar. En ambas narraciones se plantea un análisis del espacio de la representación y del dispositivo fotográfico frente a la mirada, elementos que planean sobre este proyecto.
En A/O, Alex comienza observando lo que le rodea, buscando adecuar lo que encuentra al relato que pretende situar; pero a lo largo del vídeo su mirada se vuelve cada vez más introspectiva, pues nuestra/o personaje va encontrando múltiples similitudes entre Céspedes y su propia identidad mestiza. De este modo, confluyen dos relatos que nos permiten acercar una historia aparentemente lejana en el tiempo a realidades aún vigentes en nuestros días. El proyecto propone lecturas de análisis sobre cuestiones de género; pero también ofrece posibilidades de reflexión sobre el importante papel que jugaron la esclavitud o la raza en la construcción identitaria española durante la etapa colonial y su ausencia en el ámbito de la representación, planteando claves para la exploración de los modos de construcción de los imaginarios. Inicialmente A/O incluía una publicación –que finalmente no vio la luz–, que serviría como herramienta para trasladar el debate al ámbito educativo, tanto en educación secundaria como en universidad. Para ello se produjeron tres textos que acompañan al proyecto y que analizaban la situación de los esclavos en Andalucía en las fechas en las que vivió Céspedes (Aurelia Martín Casares), la bibliografía escrita sobre el personaje (M. José Belbel) y la presencia de esclavos y disidencias sexuales en la representación pictórica española. (Sergio Rubira).
Sponsors
Cabello / Carceller's visit and exhibition are sponsored by Haverford College Libraries, Distinguished Visitors Program, Department of Spanish, Bi-Co Program in Comparative Literature, Tuttle Creative Residencies — John B. Hurford '60 Center for the Arts and Humanities, and Los Tempranillos: Early Modern Spain and Colonial Latin America Seminar of Greater Philadelphia (Mellon Tri-Co).
http://exhibits.haverford.edu/bringyourownbody/events/cabello-carceller/