Santiago Robles, “Códice Starbuckstlán”

 

 

Santiago Robles
Mexico City,
https://www.santiagorobles.info/

Códice Starbuckstlán
2018
Grana cochineal dye and acrylic paint on handmade paper made by Arte Papel Vista Hermosa, Oaxaca.
22 sheets of 9 x 15 in each. Total size: 9 x 330 in.

Artist Statement

As an artist what motivates my work is the search for spaces in which relationships are established as horizontally as possible between the individuals who collaborate in the projects and those who will coexist daily with the pieces in the public environment. In the words of Claire Bishop, art should emerge from common interests that do not mask a conflict of individualization instead of confronting and exposing it, but open us to the critical experience of being together, even if this is sometimes strange, elusive or even annoying. To achieve this, one alternative is to take up again some characteristic elements of the sense of communality – described by Floriberto Díaz Gómez – such as consensus in assembly for decision-making, free service as an exercise of authority, collective work as an act of recreation and artistic practices as an expression of the communal gift. This contributes to blur the hermeticism that sometimes separates contemporary art from the public and, at the same time, experiences can be developed that allow us to move in the opposite direction to the dehumanization, fragmentation and individualization that are so characteristic of our times.