All images Courtesy by the artist and Ruth Benzacar
Her production unfolds in and between sculpture and performance. In both disciplines, a continuum that she conceives as situations, the artist emphasizes the essential presence of the body as a meeting place and a bridge towards the intuitive, the emotional and the spiritual. In her pieces, the functionality of things is constantly revised and put in crisis, giving rise to works of ironic and paroxysmal humor as well as others that inhabit the anguish of loneliness and the alienation that control produces. The artist embodies inert matter by working it as a sentient surface and “sculptures” the body by applying conditions to it. Her sculptural objects are often used as tools in performances, that in addition, involve the bodies of collaborators or the public, frequently invited to participate.
CARYATID
Performatic installation / situation - 08/2019 - 3 hs, Kasko, Basel, CH
The Caryatids are stone carvings of draped female figures that were used as pillars to support the decking of Greek buildings. The interpretation of the value of their image is somewhat ambiguous, varying between the praising of dancing figures and the exemplary punishment of being, under the load of the structures and in their immobility, responsible for maintaining the existing social order. In this work, I enclosed my legs in a block of solid plaster and used a series of tools that I previously manufactured to get out of it.
PUPPET-ME
Performatic sculpture/situation, 06/2018, +/− 2 hs ea. time - Ruth Benzacar, Bs As, AR
A group of elements were made available to the visitors, so they could interact with my body, that waited hanging and immobile. It could be manipulated in order to adopt different positions, while at the same time revealing the characteristics of the gestures and chosen elements. The situation proposed to inhabit different possibilities of both one-to-one and group dynamics in a situation of instrumented contact, in order to re-consider -and therefore, re-elaborate- what seems to be encrypted as univocal in our every-day life effective interactions.
FIXED WAYS / MECHANICAL RESTRAIN
Situation / laboratory - 08/2018, +/− 4 hs each time - Munar art center, Buenos Aires, AR
A group of black boxes, each meant to trap a different part of a human body. Next to each box, a sheet of paper showed (a part of) an instruction. If the visitor chose to continue, her/his goods were taken hostage and hanged on a hook high on the wall, so direct access to them becomes impossible. Then, the body part was seized and the second part of the instruction whispered to the captive’s ear, asking to execute an action usually performed with the apprehended body part.
IN-TACT Performatic sculpture / situation - 12/2017 - Uv studios, Buenos Aires, AR
I embroidered the words “choose any part of your body to get in touch with any part of my body for 2 minutes” on a used bed sheet. I took a posture on a white sculpture stand and waited for any person from the audience to step in to make contact. The chronometer was set.The touching areas were filmed in a narrow closeup and projected live at large scale in a wall of an adjacent room.
OUT OF ORDER
Diffuse and soft hacking device - 08/2020 - Kunsthaus Baselland, CH
Out of Order is an attempt to disturb the automatic obedience to the tacit rules that regulate our perception, body and behavior on daily bases. Through a system of instructions, it aims to “turn the tool against itself”. Its shapes are design-based and mime the voice of the system they nest in, becoming somehow invisible. It also addresses the dynamics of dependency and freedom as non-opposites: the work appears only through the visitor’s engagement. Beyond its imperative form, it is a dialogue where connection, participation and free-willed mutual attendance are basic conditions for (its) existence.
OUT OF ORDER
Diffuse and soft hacking device - 08/2020 - Kunsthaus Baselland, CH
Out of Order is an attempt to disturb the automatic obedience to the tacit rules that regulate our perception, body and behavior on daily bases. Through a system of instructions, it aims to “turn the tool against itself”. Its shapes are design-based and mime the voice of the system they nest in, becoming somehow invisible. It also addresses the dynamics of dependency and freedom as non-opposites: the work appears only through the visitor’s engagement. Beyond its imperative form, it is a dialogue where connection, participation and free-willed mutual attendance are basic conditions for (its) existence.
MAGENMUND
Performatic installation / situation, 4 days, +/− 4 hs each time, 11/2019 - Palazzina, Basel, CH
In MAGENMUND/SWISSKISS, a series of small, instructed, mechanical actions, displayed in a specific order, propose a parcours. It is an invitation to inhabit an encounter, a dive inside a contact and a certain −regulated− openness. That is: an essential organ to vitality.
MAGENMUND
Performatic installation / situation, 4 days, +/− 4 hs each time, 11/2019 - Palazzina, Basel, CH
In MAGENMUND/SWISSKISS, a series of small, instructed, mechanical actions, displayed in a specific order, propose a parcours. It is an invitation to inhabit an encounter, a dive inside a contact and a certain −regulated− openness. That is: an essential organ to vitality.
THREE FORWARD ATTITUDES - REPENTETRIS
3 usable sculptures installation at Der Tank, Basel, Switzerland, 2020 Iron structure, mdf, carpet, hand made meditation minipillow for knee, instructions - 90x60x105 cm, 2020
THREE FORWARD ATTITUDES - REPENTETRIS
3 usable sculptures installation at Der Tank, Basel, Switzerland, 2020 Iron structure, mdf, carpet, hand made meditation minipillow for knee, instructions - 90x60x105 cm, 2020
OLDWALK
Seven-years-worn leather shoes, lead, feather
50x30x12 cm aprox, 2015
A ROOM WITH A VIEW
Iron, chains. 70 x 50 x 2 cm, 2017
LLORONA
Iron, chains. 50 x 36 x 14 cm, 2020
