A constant subject of Lucy Skaer’s work (Cambridge, United 01 the various colours amounting to more than 70 pens. He would 02 Are there stories behind these elements you take? 03 on an overseas trip before I was born. I set out the boxes first 04 Kingdom, 1975) is the transmutation of objects, both in terms only buy objects he liked, and would do so every time he went The garden outside the back of the house is overgrown but by drawing their silhouette in chalk under the carpets, then of their shape and of the possible interpretations one can shopping. Then he would put them where they ‘belong’ in all the planting is as it originally was: an order under the chaos. I began to decorate them. Between each work session I rolled derive from them. Often taking as a starting point images the house (this belonging is quite eccentric: the milk cartons On opening the back garden gate a few summers ago I was the carpet back so that the room could be used. Finally, I and concepts that originate in historical sources, the artist went in a tight arrangement on top of the microwave), and confronted by a huge solid wall of apple blossom completely lifted the floorboards that made up the boxes and assembled creates moving, pictorial and sculptural works that manifest over time they turned to great collections and heaps. These blocking any way to the house. The crown of the apple tree them, and replaced the missing boards. how their meaning changes insofar as their context is altered. hoards are formally very interesting to me, so carefully and had finally fallen to produce a 30 ft spectacular and surreal For her exhibition at Museo Tamayo, Skaer worked with her methodically produced by my father’s repeated behaviour cloud of white flowers. I haven’t made a work from the gate, family home, where she grew up and her father still lives, and lead by his aesthetic decisions. He only collects things tree or flowers, but I have made a work where the expected in order to create new objects that both preserve and wan- that he particularly likes, and then arranges them in ordered view is blocked by a blank decorative surface. der from their original history. The following is an interview islands in a larger sea of papers and books. the curators of the exhibition had with her in relation to the The house is also deeply familiar to me: filled with books, You speak as the house as source of materials, but you also development of this project. paintings, prints, ceramics and furniture that formed my add external components to the objects. What does this first cultural experience. So, in some ways, the house and decision rely on? the way that my father altered it resemble tactics that I I’ve always added material to the substance of the house. For use in my own practice. As my father’s memory detached instance, pouring tin over the coins was quite a pragmatic from the objects that surronded him, the house became choice that had to do with the low melting point of the tin. more and more of an abstraction. And this is the way that The next work I made was My Steps as My Terrace, in which I re-entered it. I used the steps to represent the terrace of six houses. It was a kind of diagram, and each of the houses was denoted by What lead you to choose these particular elements of the an added object carved and set in to the stone. For example, house in order to create the works? my own house was shown by a roman bronze mirror. I chose the The first work that I made in the house was to fuse my fa- materials as they had associations for me with the occupants ther’s coin collection into a single mass by pouring tin over it. of the various houses. It’s purposefully a subjective process. This does two things: it defines and labels the collection as a More recently, I’ve moved to more decorative actions and mate- thing, and it denies access to the coins. Making the object rials. As the subject of the house is so psychologically and sym- means using up the coins, resulting in a loss. This is true of bolically charged for me, it’s very hard to work with! Decoration all the places that I have objectified. The house is consumed is not read in this way and so it offers a kind of freedom. as the objects are produced. I only work with a part of the I’ve made the inlays that decorate Eccentric Boxes by thinly house if I need the material to make a that I want to slicing that I’ve made in response to objects that make, so it’s not like I am systematically working through my father has collected. It’s a long and on-going chain. I also the house. It’s more that I have an idea for the material so made copper spun lids to exactly fit his ceramic bowls, and I Eccentric Boxes (work in progress), 2016 I remove it from the house. cast and mutated some mysterious sticks that he had found Courtesy of the artist

It seems that in the works of the exhibition there is a shift from distant history to a more personal or familiar history. Is this something you thought of or is it an intrinsic char- acteristic of how these pieces developed?

I am interested in objects that have lost their context and Eccentric Boxes (detail), 2016. therefore their meaning is distanced or deferred, making Courtesy of the artist and Peter Freeman, Inc. New York/Paris them available in a different way. In some ways, these are the exact conditions of the house. I am also conscious that I’m It seems that working with your family house denotes a now making artefacts from the house, rather than sculp- kind of shift in your practice. How was it that you brought tures. So I don’t see these works as a move away from historic the house into play it in this way? ideas, but more of an application of them to my present. One could say that I change objects as my work. In fact, I recently came to realise that nearly all the forms that I use In this sense, the tension between history and new context are pre-existing or borrowed from another artist or object, is even stronger since there is a familiar angle to them. Is and my action is to morph the way they act or are under- this something you were looking for in choosing to work stood. In some ways, the house became a transmutation with the house? even before this project began: my father had been living Yes. And therefore it’s really hard to work with the house— there alone for 20 years, during which time he had begun and I think this work comes closer to failure and risks more. to lose his memory. So, the house went from a bustling fam- The sense I have of history (both ancient and personal) comes ily house to a bachelor pad to something altogether more from the house and its contents: from books on Minoan strange. Civilisation to Tutankhamun’s Tomb to British Modernism. A My father began to collect and arrange specific objects while ago I was working on some projects that try to deal in a serial way: producing rows of empty milk containers, with complexity in sculpture. At some point I had the idea of Eccentric Boxes (detail), 2016. Eccentric Boxes (detail), 2016. heaps of sponge dish scourers and stacks of highlighter pens, Courtesy of the artist and Peter Freeman, Inc. New York/Paris Courtesy of the artist and Peter Freeman, Inc. New York/Paris making a sculpture of a publishing house: so many narratives and histories visited, transcribed, combined, bound, copied 05 Lucy Skaer (Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1975) studied Fine 06 and distributed. I think it’s a similar desire that pushes me Arts at the School of Art. Her work has been exhibited LUCY SKAER to make the works in the house, a kind of overloading of the at the Witte de With (2016) in Rotterdam, the Drawing Center information that objects can sensibly carry. (2016) in New York, the Kunsthalle Wien (2012) in Vienna, the 9th Mercosul Biennial (2013) in Brazil, and the Tate Britain Of course, there is a poetic and even personal dimension to (2009) in , among other spaces. these works, but at the same time they are not entirely sentimental. Instead, there is an element of wearing away the history of these objects (and, to an extent, of the house) in order to replace it with a new symbolic content. Making the work is destructive to the house and the sense of place it has. In some ways it seems to me cannibalistic. I’m not sure if that is sentimental or not! I own and carry with me parts of the house, but they no longer contain any SECRETARÍA DE CULTURA hard-wired memory or recollection. So it is a process of re- moving genuine experience and making an object from the María Cristina García Cepeda genuine material. Secretaria Saúl Juárez Vega On some other works you have used scale in order to pro- Subsecretario de Desarrollo Cultural duce and shift the meaning of objects or images. Is there something similar going on in this exhibition? Jorge Gutiérrez Vázquez Subsecretario de Diversidad Cultural y Fomento a la Lectura These works use scale in various ways, from the expansion of the steps to symbolise the terrace, to the compression of Francisco Cornejo Rodríguez the living room to a box. I want to exploit the architectural Oficial Mayor scale of the central patio at the Museo Tamayo to further this, a building within a building, one that you are inside and INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE BELLAS ARTES one that you cannot enter. I will show the works again, but I think I won’t transform Lidia Camacho Camacho them. Most of the alterations that I make to my sculptures Directora general or installations are to play with their meaning. These works Xavier Guzmán Urbiola THE SMALLER HOUSE seem more static, as they are the products of the house. Subdirector general del Patrimonio Artístico Inmueble The house is the part that, for me, is dynamic and shifting, 1 JUL. — 17 SEP. 2017 and its relationship to the objects may change over time. Magdalena Zavala Bonachea Coordinadora Nacional de Artes Visuales

Roberto Perea Cortés Director de Difusión y Relaciones Públicas

Juan A. Gaitán Director del Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo

MUSEOTAMAYO.ORG Paseo de la Reforma 51, Bosque de Chapultepec, Miguel Hidalgo, C.P. 11580 Tel: +52 (55) 4122 8200 INBA 01 800 904 4000 - 5282 1964 - 1000 5636 Eccentric Boxes (detail), 2016. My Steps as my Terrace (work in progress), 2013 www.gob.mx/cultura www.gob.mx/mexicoescultura www.gob.mx/cultura/inba FB: INBAmx TW:bellasartesinba YT: bellasartesmex Courtesy of the artist and Peter Freeman, Inc. New York/Paris Courtesy of the artist MUSEOTAMAYO