After investigating the concept of Autoconstrucción for many years, Abraham Cruzvillegas decided to modify his perspective and think about Autodestrucción (self-destruction) as a line of work with which to generate new production problems and strategies. To quote his own words, “in order to be someone else tomorrow, we have to destroy who we are today; then there is a kind of phoenix that matches the idea of identity, where we have to destroy ourselves to be someone else. This idea in the form, for me, has to do with the demolition of architecture, architecture as a space of power, as the seat of power.”[1]
Zah Zuh Zah (Joyful Warm) is a piece that is part of a project that Cruzvillegas carried out in the city of Los Angeles, California in the United States, which resulted in the first series of sculptures in this area of Autodestrucción. The starting point of the project was the story of Miguel Prado, a relative of the artist who was part of the Pachuco movement and who, in his travels as a musician, ed the countercultural movements of the Zoot Suiters in California and the Zazous in Paris during the 1930s.
According to Cruzvillegas himself, exposing the material and conceptual nature of the piece, as well as its construction process: “I linked the works there with the story of one of my ancestors and I touched on some particular episodes of recent history, such as the Second World War, music and the fashions of some specific cultural groups of the people of the time, such as the Zoot Suiters, the Pachucos and the Zazous. I asked some of the collaborators, as well as the gallery staff, to search for demolition materials with rebar and other construction debris, as well as feathers and colored clothing and chains. I improvised all of the possible combinations.” [2]
Each element of Zah Zuh Zah (Joyful Warm) alludes to different realities in the Los Angeles context: rebar to the field of construction and destruction; chains and feathers to the Pachuco movement; dried meat to the Oaxacan food restaurants in that city. The title of the work, meanwhile, comes from a 1933 song by the singer and jazz musician Cab Calloway, linked to the Zoot Suit movement.
All together, all the elements point to that second “life” that objects and organic matter find in Cruzvillegas's pieces once they have been discarded or abandoned as part of their daily circulation. At the same time, by recovering these movements and transforming them into sculptural pieces, the artist seeks to draw attention to how identity and fashion can converge to become movements of resistance. Finally, the fact that the piece is suspended from the ceiling points to a critique of the more conventional idea of how the possibilities of sculptural practice can be understood.
EKA, june 2020.
https://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2012/11/abraham-cruzvillegas-at-regen-projects/
https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/interviews/abraham-cruzvillegas-56301/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-qEZ9zeIJw
David Miranda, “Autodestrucción 2”, en: Jaime soler Frost (ed.), Textos sobre la obra de Abraham Cruzvillegas, México, Secretaría de Cultura, 2016, p. 235-286.
Mark Godfrey, “Abraham Cruzvillegas conversa con Mark Godfrey”, en: Jaime soler Frost (ed.), Textos sobre la obra de Abraham Cruzvillegas, México, Secretaría de Cultura, 2016, p. 448-503.
[1] Citado en David Miranda, “Autodestrucción 2”, en: Jaime soler Frost (ed.), Textos sobre la obra de Abraham Cruzvillegas, México, Secretaría de Cultura, 2016, p. 238.
[2] Citado en Mark Godfrey, “Abraham Cruzvillegas conversa con Mark Godfrey”, en: Jaime soler Frost (ed.), Textos sobre la obra de Abraham Cruzvillegas, México, Secretaría de Cultura, 2016, p. 479.
