Sheep shit, lumps of hair, metal, wood and rope, all come together in Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas’ installation at Tate Modern. We caught up with him as the work was being installed to find out more.
In the summer of 2008, Cruzvillegas spent several months at Cove Park, on the west coast of Scotland. During that time, he carried out research into the local economy and the materials associated with it. These investigations dovetailed with a longer-standing interest in the improvisatory architecture of his parents’ house in Mexico City. Like many of their neighbours, Cruzvillegas’ parents built their house themselves, adding to it over many decades — a process known as autoconstrucción, or ‘self-building’.
These dual influences are the inspiration for his installation ‘Autoconstrucción’, in which materials drawn from the rural Scottish environment are brought together with the construction techniques of Mexico City.
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