ZOOMORPHIA AT MCA, SYDNEY

Installation views of Zoomorphia: Maria Fernanda Cardoso. Curated by Elizabeth Ann McGregor MCA Museum of Contemporary Art. Sydney, NSW, Australia.

RANAS BAILANDO EN EL MURO / DANCING FROGS ON WALL
Preserved frogs, metal.

A circle of preserved frogs lays on the floor. Their legs and arms have been positioned in square angles, to resemble the stylized and geometric zoomorphic and anthropomorphic representations characteristic of pre-Columbian design. By placing them in a standing position, they become antropomorphic, look as if they were dancing, and add humor to this piece. Frogs, lizards, and snakes, were god animals for pre-Columbian cultures. By using real (and preserved) animals rather than representations of them, I neutralize their mythical value, and confronts us with death. The tension between reality and representation, reflects on how, in a country as violent as Colombia, we live with unmediated death and face life.

CORONA DE ESPINAS CHIBCHA / CROWN OF THORNS CHIBCHA
Preserved lizards, metal

In pre-Columbian cultures lizards, frogs and snakes were god animals, symbols of fertility and water. This "halo", or "crown" for an Indian princess, is a cross between the Catholic crown of thorns, and the pre-Columbian sacred symbols. This piece represents to me the paradoxical concept of sacrifice, from the dictionary: "the forfeiture of some valued thing, for the sake of something of greater value".

SOL NEGRO / BLACK SUN
Preserved houseflies, styrofoam, glue and metal

I bred house flies in my studio at Yale University with the help of a scientist friend. First, I ordered 15 pupae from a Biological Supply company. I placed them in mesh cages and I placed a plastic jaar with milk and a little bit of liver to induce the females from laying eggs. Then I just had to wait for the eggs to hatch. One day I arrived to my studio and I saw all the maggots jumping out of the plastic jar and landing in the floor, and then trying to hide in the cracks of the wooden floor. I had to retrieve them one by one using very fine and delicate tweezers.

I then place them in a carboard box, and watch them metamorphosize into pupae. Then the cycle started again, but with many more maggots than I started with. I expanded the colony to have half a dozen cages full of house flies. The smells of the colony became too intense so my MFA classmates asked me to please stop breeding them. I waited for them to die of natural death, and then I glued one by one in sideways position to an Styrofoam ball so there would be a halo of wings shimmering around the ball.

The reason I wanted to use house flies for my art was because they were familiar to me as a child in Colombia, and because they were small. I used to think they were very clean, as I observed them constantly washing their little hands. Later flies had other connotation for me, and became a reference to the violence in Colombia. Flies are an indication where to find dead bodies.

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THE AESTHETICS OF DEATH

I analyze what sort of influences has affect me as an artist, as a person... these influence were from pre-columbian culture, which was not simple power of our daily life. The “Huacas” found in the fields by my family and the “huacas” that we bought were all around us. My sister studied anthropology and was an archaeologist before she became a filmmaker, and we used to go to archeological museums together to learn about our roots.

As a child, in those museums, I knew that I was looking at funerary art. The other great influence in our culture, religious and baroque art found in our churches, is also art about torture and the funerary. That image of Jesus bleeding and suffering, dead or in the process of dying, combined with the little bones found inside the “huacas”, the pots and the pre-columbian jewels, formed by my own definition of art, the art I was directly exposed to. It’s not the art mediated by European art history books. Besides, nature was an essential part of living in Colombia, of growing up visiting the mountains with my father. We used to go in search of lizards, frogs, and snakes and also to look at little snails and orchids. We learned survival techniques for when there is no water. You pick up these roots and suck the water from them. It was beautiful, and my father used to teach me the names of all the flowers. Those were the influences from my own life. From these I began to work with the animals I had played with as a child. Those were my animals. The moment I realized that they were all pre-Columbian sacred animals was revealing…

Living in the United States I noticed that nature and death are constantly denied. You do not want to see death or sickness; you don’t want to see where animals are slaughtered and then processed for us to eat. You don’t eat the animal; you eat the packet containing something you buy in the supermarket. It is something abstract. It has nothing to do with the animal. Coming from a country like Colombia where you confront harsh realities, there is a sharp contrast— they seem like the complete opposite of us. I want to feel pain, I want to see death, I don’t want to deny it, don’t want to cover it up, to hide it away. I developed a whole aesthetic of death, but for me it was a very natural thing.

Maria Fernanda Cardoso