INTRODUCTION

For her exhibition at MINI / Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 from May 22–June 26, 2011, Catalina Parra selected works produced between 1969 and today, stemming from extended periods in Germany, , Canada and the United States. This exhibition at Ludlow 38 is Parra’s first solo show in New York in over a decade, after the exhibition curated by Jane Farver at Lehman College Art Gallery, New York (1991) and It’s Indisputable, one of the two inaugural exhibitions at

the Jersey City Museum, New Jersey (2001). In the early 2000s Parra went to Argentina to work as the cultural attaché for the . Chilean government. During this time, Parra says, she felt disconnected from developments in New York and returned from Buenos Aires in 2010. We are glad to have the opportunity to reintroduce her work at MINI / Goethe-Institut Curatorial

Residencies Ludlow 38 in New York. Revisiting Parra’s work is especially relevant today, I believe, since there is a number of 1990 (collage)

artists from a younger generation whose work is akin in form, stemming from the readymade material of newspapers and

fashion magazines today. The politically outspoken nature of Parra’s work is mirrored in today’s conversations with artists yet , Bronx, N.Y.: The Gallery, The Gallery, N.Y.: , Bronx,

formal aspects often veil it. Relying on a variety of media including drawing, collage and film, Parra has demonstrated an W 38 extraordinary sensibility towards the socio-political affairs that take place around us. As artist Coco Fusco outlined in a 1991 in Retrospect: Catalina Parra essay that was published in the catalogue for Parra’ s solo show at the INTAR Gallery, the artist “concentrates on the process The Society of the Spectacle of coming to terms with information that connotes something different than what it denotes.” With an aesthetic awareness The human touch nr 4, that draws parallels to the work of Hannah Höch and John Heartfield, the artist repeatedly begins her constructions from

newspaper advertisements to create hand-sewn collages and mixed media works. In these works, Parra critically examines — 2

O military interventions as well as the empty promises of financial institutions and capitalist consumer society. 1 Herzberg, P. Julia New York, Bronx, Gallery, Art Lehman College 4, 1992 6-April February 1991, 13. 2 Guy Debord, 1994, 7. Zone Books, York: New Fig. The exhibition at Ludlow 38 opened with a series of small-scale personal photographs taken by Parra at the beginning of her career near Lake Constance, Germany, shortly before and after she began working as an independent artist and in

L collaboration with Ulrike Oettinger. These images depicted the artist herself, newly arrived in the rural German context, as well as images of friends and other artists such as Wolf Vostell and Tabea Blumenschein, an actor who starred in several of Ulrike Oettinger’s films. Presented adjacently, and inside the same display case, the exhibition featured the magazine

Manuscritos (1975), the first publication of art criticism published after the Chilean military coup of 1973, as well as the perspectivethat the share Debord and the of outside space a find cannot we omnipresentmode and dominant stage to which communication from of exist. not doesspace a such revolt; a within. from come must then, revolt, The suggests she work collage Parra’s From thatreality the subvert can we if that we if real, acceptas to supposedare we critique and question to learncan andimages information, of flow the then may we receive, we that language stitch construct or begin to to able be and aware more new, a together perhaps is that one reality;conscious beautiful. more aspiringandwriter a is Rychen Jailee andhistory artdegrees in with curator museumstudies. catalogue for Parra’s first solo exhibition in her native Chile, at Galeria Epoca, de Chile, 1977. Opposite these works we mounted a selection from her 1992 series Here, there, everywhere. Suspended in the front gallery we selected a series of collages that had never previously been shown. Parra made these collages in the early 1970s while she was in the early stages

we we

of her career in Hegne, Germany. Together these suspended works formed a sort of antechamber to the works shown near the gallery’s entrance. USA, Where Liberty is a Statue (1987), a thirty second video that was played on the ‘Spectacolor’ billboard as in Times Square as part of the Public Art Fund project titled Messages to the Public (1982–1990) was displayed in the ‘second’ gallery, past the suspended pieces. For this video work, the artist created an animation using the words of her father, the Chilean poet . The piece wittingly questions the idolized American vision of freedom and liberty. The Fales spectacle is in fact related fact in is

Library & Special Collections at NYU lent us a number of preparatory sketches that Parra made in anticipation of the project, spectacle, is defined as a asdefined is Debord, like Debord, ² displayed alongside publications from previous exhibitions by the artist in the passage space of the gallery. Finally, for FOSA LUD (2005), the artist employed excavation equipment in the Atacama Desert (Chile) to create a land art piece that resembles a

mass grave. Monumental and ephemeral at the same time, Parra pays tribute to the many individuals that went missing during itself. the military dictatorship of (1973–1990). Documentation of the intervention was presented at Ludlow 38 in the form of a video installation in the rear gallery alongside the pieces Diario da Vida from 1977 and 2010. spectacle I am most grateful to Catalina Parra. We hope that the transcript of our conversation will help the reader gain additional Jailee Rychen Creating work that mimicsthethat work Creating Parra both that seemsevident It spectacular society spectacular access to her oeuvre. I am also indebted to the Ludlow 38 interns Amran Frey and Justin Bradford Richardson who have

helped to realize the exhibition and the publication as well as Jailee Rychen and Jean Franco for their insightful texts. cases,she many Inimages. other advertisedbeing product the removes scope viewer’s the widen to order in method Parra’s interpretation. of above to meaningreferred double of similarmethod a exposes effectively employed is meaningthat hidden of materialoriginalnewspaperwithin the Parracollages. utilizes her in she that ironichypocritical andthe exposes “The headlinesas such messagesof Edge”Financial the Touch, Human does she What Undisputable.” “It’s and re-contextualizedissectand isin them original,challengesthe that manner a meaningbehindthem.underlying messageshidden the expose to order In Parrauses, she that media the of and similarlyambiguous employs carefullymeditatedartisticlanguage. certainperspective, a from Therefore, by critique her buildsartist the media the of methods the emulating critique. her of subject the is that critiquedbeing object the of language Guy of theoreticalideas the echoes the of concept Debord’s Debord. spectacle the of society livesmodern our of vision Parra’s to consumer- and capitalist a within concept Debord’s obsessed society. of dominatedhighlyby so is that society to able longer no is it that images realitythe from realitytrueidentify media. the superficially by produced the describes Debord the of project the and result the “both not is It production. of mode dominant real the to added decoration mere realthis of heartvery the is It world. unreality.” society’s to collages,stressesthat her in Parra the challenge and analyze languageutilizethe required to are the of

Finally I would like to express my gratitude to the director of Goethe-Institut New York, Dr. Stephan Wackwitz, as well as by MINI and Friends of Goethe for their continuous support of Ludlow 38.

Tobi Maier, Curator

Y

IT Her work work Her ¹

.” imbunche REAL Catalina Parra R In Parra’s newspaper collages,she newspaper Parra’s In HE influenced by the work of John John of work the influenced by of collagespolitical whose Heartfield a portrayedimages photographic the duringmessageanti-fascist strong Nazi and Hitler of rise the of time beenhas work her says She Germany. in sensibilityfound the informedby experienceas her but work Heartfield’s various in working and livingartist an under globe, the countries around has conditions,political various of development the to led inevitably critique. of languagedifferent a the Chileduringin While working ParraPinochet,Agusto dictatorshipof of use subtle the through learnedthat could she juxtapositionsmaterials and servedthat language a in work produce oppositional strong camouflage;her as regime,Pinochet the about message used,materials she encodedwithinthe government detected by not was of speak to order “In authorities. the sufferingby causedand pain the artistthe , silencingof double of language a invented esotericthatlanguage meaning,an of theme the upon unsuspiciousdrew the of myth the reality new a space, new a created her express to free was she where defianceand sorrow of feelings thatrealitypolitical harsh the towards time a At facing. was country home her intellectualsartists,writersand when for prison in thrown being all were the rebelliousagainststancetheir being was work Parra’s dictatorship, that Proof Chile.exhibitedin openly successfultogetherstitching was in she one when contestation of space new a elsewhere. found be not could particular a directlystate not does provide explicitly she does nor position delicatelymessage; she obvious an only meaningis the that so text alters insertsand cuts She skewed. slightly INTERVIEW with Tobi Maier T GE

O The following conversation between Catalina Parra professors like Jauß, Kambartel and Dahrendorf, etc. the materials, the feeling, the sensitivity with materials and Tobi Maier was recorded during a visit to Ulrike was an avant-gardist; she spent many years in Paris in my work. They never linked it to the political situation

Parra’s apartment on New York’s Upper West Side and admired Gertrude Stein. She supported my work and because they weren’t ready for that. in February 2011. offered me a one-woman show in her gallery. The artists G T she represented included Vostell, Badura, Hockney, TM: Did you feel protected by the environment you grew Tobi Maier: So what are we starting with? Kitaj, Lourdes Castro, among others. I haven’t seen up in as well as the intellectual protection of your father, IN

Catalina Parra: Germany, 1968. Ulrike since I left Germany. Nicanor Parra? H CP: No, not at all. There were many intellectuals in TM: Have you been producing work in Chile before TM: Your earlier pieces are collages that refer to the site jail. They left Chile or sought protection in embassies. ideological its and you moved to Germany? where they were produced. Then your work started The military silenced that part of society. My father CP: No, I started in Germany. triggering associations with socio-political currents at stayed in Chile. He wasn’t directly involved in what was the time? going on. There was no respect for anybody. Forget it. TITC imbunche The use of the stitch is an example an is stitch the of use The TM: Why did you start working as an artist in Germany? CP: Absolutely, my early works were very naïve. Then, No, the military were very clear; if you disturb their order, S

CP: I always wanted to make art and I was very all of sudden, I started to get more political. It was post then boom … appears that stitching of method The Chileanartist of works collage the in defining a beenhas Catalina Parra processsincecreative her of element collage Her artisticcareer. her in early newspapers, up cut from made is work reconstructedrearrangedand through She stitches. red of application the afterstitching practiceof the adopted Araucanianmyth old an learning of would that tribe a of story the tells that creature a orifices of the of all shut sew escape. not couldspiritsevil that so as to referred creatureis The the significancemanifestsitself Stemming work. Parra’s throughout becomea hasstitching tale,this from manipulation,grotesque for metaphor the On censorship. and suppression describesalsoartist the the hand, other relationship its of terms in sewing of act stitches The feminine handiwork. with the representationsof as seen be can that restoring or mending processof destroyed. or tornbeen has which act an just only not is Stitching of act an is also but restoration of inparts together stitchingcreation: that statesParra whole. a form to order naturalpossess a women often inthings restore or fix to tendency beautiful more new, a form to order work her institching of use The reality. violentsimultaneously therefore, is, of method a is It generative. and realitythe questions that reinvention basisdaily a on given are we that of methods authoritative through communication,her representedin newspaper. the piecesby political of language own Parra’s of literal on based not is that one critique, imagery but obvious or depictions impliedambiguously and delicately inliving was While she work. her in impressedandvery was she Germany impressed by the daily life in Germany. We lived in 1968, during the Vietnam War, all the student movements Konstanz am Bodensee. At the time, my husband was in Berlin, in Paris etc. It was the time of the Baader- TM: Your father was a part a group of intellectuals in getting his PhD there. I was really impressed with the Meinhof group in West Germany. It was the moment. Chile whose work became the material for Manuscritos, organization, the tidiness, and the flowers. There was no a magazine about culture that you designed. Can you sign of the World War, everything felt clean. In 1969 TM: What happened after your stay in Germany? tell me about Manuscritos? Who was part of this group? I went to see Information at the Kunsthalle Basel. It was CP: I went back to Chile. It was 1972. I had developed CP: At that moment there was nothing going on a show of British and American Pop art featuring work a political consciousness while living in Germany. After in Chile in terms of culture. With the military coup the by Joe Tilson, Peter Phillips, Allen Jones, R. B. Kitaj, a couple months, there was a military coup. Chile has a Instituto Pedagógico at the Universidad de Chile Eduardo Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton. It made a big history of being a republic – democracy was the standard disappeared. At the time, there was Christián Huneeus, C atalina PARRA impression on me. Before I used to go to museums and – and suddenly it became a dictatorship. [Salvador] a writer and intellectual, a brilliant guy who had lived nothing happened to me and then suddenly this show was Allende was elected president. He was a socialist and in London and moved back to Chile. Huneeus was so alive. With all the materials the artists used, the music it was the first time in the world that a socialist came into the head of Instituto de Estudios Humanísticos, an etc. I got very enthusiastic and started to do research on power by vote. Kissinger didn’t like it at all as they had institution that was meant to teach humanities to German history and began reading about Rosa their own interests with Chile, etc. The story is that engineers. Because they closed the Instituto Pedagógico, Luxemburg. I started looking at John Heartfield’s work. Pinochet took power overthrowing Allende’s government intellectuals like Nicanor Parra and Enrique Lihn had After that I needed to express my thoughts, to understand by force. This whole time I was working to make sense no place to go and no place to work. Huneeus was friends what was going on in the place where I was living of what happened. with them. He took them with him to the Instituto de

where everything was so organized. It was my way of Estudios Humanísticos. One day Huneeus decided we

understanding Germany. TM: Did you feel brave producing political work at a time should produce a magazine. The group of contributors second A manually. done was excavation the and shovel mechanical no as

of censorship? was composed of Nicanor Parra, Enrique Lihn, was there version, first this In York. New Lexington, in realized first was

OSA F

TM: Where did you find the source material for your CP: You should see the pieces that were there, it’s Alejandro Jodorowsky, [Luis] Oyarzun, [Roberto] that excavation this of version third the of document a is (2005)

collages? unbelievable. With the barbwire, rabbit skins, gauze, Humeres, [Jorge] Sanhueza, Berti. There is only one past. the of reminders no wanted that regimes with replaced be would CP: I culled material from different sources, for black plastic bags. It was so clear that it had to do with the number of Manuscritos. In terms of the reception of that promise utopian of era an of end the of sign visible the is monument example the Swiss magazine DU. disaster that was going on. But at the time, the language that publication, in the Chilean intellectual world, there

that I was using … I wasn’t saying, “The Militars are is a “before Manuscritos” and an “after Manuscritos.” distant The paradise. neoliberal a as nation the reinventing to dedicated

TM: Where did you show your work in Germany? killers.” It had nothing to do with that, it had to do with government a and opposition the of extermination the dissidence, May 22

CP: Ulrike Oettinger had an art gallery called Galerie the shock of what was going on and a gut feeling. TM: You decided to publish the “Quebrantahuesos” the all of suppression the includes that history the history, other

Press, also a bookstore, and everybody met there. Ulrike I was preparing a show at that time in Galeria Epoca in in Manuscritos? Can you tell me more about it? the symbolizes horizon, the on patch a as visible Disappeared, the to

was absolutely out of this world. The space was always Santiago de Chile (1977). My friends told me that my show CP: In Manuscritos we published the Monument The deaths. their of secret the guard would Concertación La

packed with people. It was the most fun I have ever had in was going to be stopped and that they would take me “Quebrantahuesos”. “Quebrantahuesos” was a kind of government, coalition the by later, and regime Pinochet

my life. Those three years in Germany were unbelievable. away. But, the military didn’t have the capacity to read “Diario Mural” that was shown in a store window, the by decreed amnesia national the that and forgotten be then would

Her presence was important in the intellectual milieu of between the lines. I remember there was a big article weekly, in midtown Santiago. The material that made they that belief the in desert the in buried and killed were who women

Konstanz composed mainly by students and by renowned in El Mercurio, the Chilean newspaper. It talked about up this mural had been abandoned in a wooden shack and men the of history hidden the is figures sack those in Compressed

can’t get out of his body, so it’s a kind of censoring of release.” release.” of censoring of kind a it’s so body, his of out get can’t

the body orifices sewn shut, all the holes blocked so that the evil spirits spirits evil the that so blocked holes the all shut, sewn orifices body the

imbunche imbunche is “the person who has all all has who person “the is The exhibition. l987 an to reference

imbunche that Parra described in in described Parra that folklore Chilean of mythological

cavity) slowly filled with their own matter.” The tied up sacks recall the the recall sacks up tied The matter.” own their with filled slowly cavity)

described them, they are “rudely stacked, (non bodies lie dirt dead in a a in dead dirt lie bodies (non stacked, “rudely are they them, described

The sacks of dirt are strangely humanoid or as Ronald Christ Christ Ronald as or humanoid strangely are dirt of sacks The

product serves no vital purpose. purpose. vital no serves product

a mechanical task whose whose task mechanical a – become has work what is shows video the what they can, searching for interstices.” Yet more than the hardship of labor, labor, of hardship the than more Yet interstices.” for searching can, they

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inhabitants work hard to break into it and make it habitable in any way way any in habitable it make and it into break to hard work inhabitants

Chile is to me: that land so hostile from every direction that its its that direction every from hostile so land that me: to is Chile

up that I realized how the work functions as a perfect metaphor for what what for metaphor perfect a as functions work the how realized I that up 2011 26, June

was so ferocious, the terrain was so hard with layers and layers to break break to layers and layers with hard so was terrain the ferocious, so was

Parra has spoken of the difficulty of working in the desert. “The wind wind “The desert. the in working of difficulty the of spoken has Parra

owned Chuquicamata copper mine. mine. copper Chuquicamata owned

evoked by the work of excavation is the desert’s major industry, the U.S. U.S. the industry, major desert’s the is excavation of work the by evoked

products but simply harvests desert dust. Absent from the video but but video the from Absent dust. desert harvests simply but products

machine as much as he controls it. The worker no longer packages new new packages longer no worker The it. controls he as much as machine

is now no more than the extension of the machine, controlled by the the by controlled machine, the of extension the than more no now is

to another underscores the monotony of work and the fact that the worker worker the that fact the and work of monotony the underscores another to

dirt. The grinding monotony of the machine moving dirt from one place place one from dirt moving machine the of monotony grinding The dirt.

the human is reduced to performing a robotic function whose product is is product whose function robotic a performing to reduced is human the

The video is a literal representation of mechanical production in which which in production mechanical of representation literal a is video The

machine’s operator. operator. machine’s

monotonous grind of the machine and the only human presence is the the is presence human only the and machine the of grind monotonous

a book with the title “Cruel Modernity.” Modernity.” “Cruel title the with book a desert becomes a stage of simulation of production. The sound track is the the is track sound The production. of simulation of stage a becomes desert

on working present at is She Literature. Comparative and English of shows a mechanical shovel excavating and filling sacks with dirt, as the the as dirt, with sacks filling and excavating shovel mechanical a shows

Department the in later and Portuguese and Spanish of Department the civilization is the Monument to the Disappeared. Parra’s installation installation Parra’s Disappeared. the to Monument the is civilization

in first l982, since University Columbia at been has Franco Jean A wind blows incessantly over the barren landscape whose only trace of of trace only whose landscape barren the over incessantly blows wind A

traces are of nomadic tribes and the disinterred bones of the recent dead. dead. recent the of bones disinterred the and tribes nomadic of are traces

desert where rain never falls and nothing grows, where the few human human few the where grows, nothing and falls never rain where desert

exhumation, exposure, exploitation and even exhibition. exhibition. even and exploitation exposure, exhumation, brief video we confront not Zizek’s “desert of the real” but the real of a a of real the but real” the of “desert Zizek’s not confront we video brief

deconstruct the multiple strands that link extraction, excavation, excavation, extraction, link that strands multiple the deconstruct were “disappeared” by the military during the Pinochet regime. In this this In regime. Pinochet the during military the by “disappeared” were

OSA F , it is up to the spectator to to spectator the to up is it , In comments. ironic simple and tomb, graveyard and sepulcher of several hundred men and women who who women and men hundred several of sepulcher and graveyard tomb,

forms of language including newspaper headlines, poster announcements announcements poster headlines, newspaper including language of forms Atacama Desert in Chile is the unequivocal reminder that it was the the was it that reminder unequivocal the is Chile in Desert Atacama

In her collages, Parra deployed irony and ambiguity by using diverse diverse using by ambiguity and irony deployed Parra collages, her In OSA F ,” shot in 2004 in the the in 2004 in shot ,” installation, video Parra’s Catalina of title The

grating noise of the machine – emphasizes dissonance. dissonance. emphasizes – machine the of noise grating

of the past to the exploitation of the soil, while the sound track – the the – track sound the while soil, the of exploitation the to past the of

to work as he or she processes a rich array of meanings, from the recovery recovery the from meanings, of array rich a processes she or he as work to

OSA F video installation, the spectator is put put is spectator the installation, video the In ambiguity. exploited

is the Chilean installation that is the most complex. In her collages, Parra Parra collages, her In complex. most the is that installation Chilean the is by Jean Franco Jean by

it But, river. a near situated was l981 in Brazil Alegre, Porto in version

A FOS

Fig. 1 — There … 5, 1992 (collage)

video, 4 min 45 sec, looped, color, sound color, looped, sec, 45 min 4 video,

FOSA, — Chile, in Desert Atacama in intervention of documentation 2005, 3 Fig.

RR PA A IN AL T CA A

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— 12 12 Fig. Schreibmaschine, Schreibmaschine, 1970 (mixed media collage) media (mixed 1970 L Goethe-Institut

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CO all at Spectorall at Books,Leipzig, UlrichLindner,Siegfried andHoppe StephanGoethe-InstitutWackwitz at Dr. AnnaOstoya York, New PublishedSpector Booksby MINI and CuratorialResidencies 38 Ludlow reserved. rights All Allimages courtesy artistthe unless otherwisenoted. PublishedSpectorby: Books Harkortstraße10 Germany Leipzig, 04107 Tel / Fax: +49 341 2122411 [email protected] www.spectorbooks.com Internationaldistribution: www.mottodistribution.com Maier Tobi by Edited T I H by Designed LincoPrinting by Printed USA in 1000 of Edition MINI CuratorialResidencies Ludlow38 LudlowStreet38 10002 York New Tel +1 212 228 6848 [email protected] www.ludlow38.org 978-3-940064-27-1 ISBN Acknowledgements: CatalinaParra, IsabelBoyce, LibraryDarmsLisaFalesthe andand Special Collections, York, New NYU, Williams,Justin B. Amran Frey, CamilleJaileeRychen, Okhio, Muntadas,Franco,Jean Marcela Ramos, Falconi,JoseAndré Severo, (LinaGrumm T I Szoska,Mikolaj H AnnetteWenzeland & Jan Lux), June 26, 2011

‒ 1970 (mixed 1970 media collage) Untitled,

— 6

Fig. Invitation postcard from the Public Art Fund Archive

— 5

Fig. Courtesy Fales Library and Special Collections, University New York

May 22

— 11 11 Fig. Fusil a percusion directa, percusion a Fusil

1979 (mixed media collage) media (mixed 1979 for 20 years and pieces of text had fallen apart. I knew the veterans on the street mentally disturbed, etc. The society during the Marcia Tucker’s times, as an artist educator, material because, as a child, I lived with my father in the hasn’t done anything for them. It’s the same old story I taught at schools, marginal schools, that didn’t have place where these intellectuals met to work. They created everywhere. That’s why “Welcome Home”. And this resources for art classes. We were doing a program that these kinds of newspapers and showed them weekly by continues to happen over and over again with the new showed political art to the students. I used to show slides putting them on display in a window in the center of wars. Veterans come back totally mentally destroyed. and get the students engaged in a political discussion. Santiago. The “Quebrantahuesos” took place in 1953 and And there are all these things that we aren’t aware of like They originally were not at all interested in art but then we recovered the material for Manuscritos. A lot has been Agent Orange. We have no idea what is going on. I showed work with guns, AIDS and violence – it was an written about it now. With Manuscritos we could address approach to art from the context of their real lives.

what it means to put things in the street, etc. I was TM: “We are here to tell you the truth”– These are the Then they became interested.

Galerie Press, Konstanz, 1971 Konstanz, Press, Galerie the visualizer, meaning the designer for Manuscritos. kinds of catch phrases that you rarely see today.

— Invitation card to Catalina Parra’s exhibition at exhibition Parra’s Catalina to card Invitation 8 Fig. Advertisers don’t dare to use these phrases anymore, or TM.: Can you tell me about some recent work of yours TM: So Manuscritos was sort of Samisdat, a self made perhaps now their methods are just subtler. such as the piece that you did for the III Bienal de secret publication that was bypassing censorship? Is there CP: Exactly. They were so authoritarian. I think that Mercosul Porto Alegre in 2001 and then again in 2005 in an institution in Chile collecting these documents now? after the economic collapse everything is going to be a the Atacama desert FOSA (2005)? CP: Yes that’s correct. There is Centro de little more human. When I first arrived here in the 1980s, CP: Fosa means grave in Spanish. It was always about

Investigación. They are collecting everything and doing this was a different city. And now I have the feeling that Chile and those who disappeared during the Pinochet

1969 cloister in Hegne, ca. Hegne, in cloister it seriously. it’s getting a little more human because there is less money. regime. I did this piece also in the Atacama Desert

— The artist in front of the the of front in artist The Fig.10 Fig.10 in Chile but I first did it in upstate New York. There was TM: Can you tell me more about your work at this time TM: You connected very quickly with MoMA and with a group of us including Liliana Porter, Regina Vater, in New York in the 1980s? the art world in New York? Alfredo Jaar and Cecilia Vicuña who were invited by CP: Then, after that show in 1977, I stayed in Chile CP: Barbara London, the curator for film and video at a hotel owner to create work in the land surrounding his and then I got the Guggenheim fellowship that MoMA, liked my work and asked me to do a video piece. hotel. The curator was the Brazilian artist Regina Vater. allowed me to come to New York. I had separated from I did a short video and we had other pieces in the show. Then I was invited by a Chilean artist to show the work my husband. It was up for a month. That was my first one-woman show in 2005. I said I would do it only if I could do it in the I had my three teenage kids. It was unbelievable. I was in the States. desert. The desert is where the Chuquicamata Mines are

only 40 years old. I think the very first piece I did when Also Juan Sanchez, a Puerto Rican artist, saw my work in located. This is a massive copper mine, one of the largest — Konstanz am Bodensee, am Konstanz — 1972 (mixed media collage) media (mixed 1972 7

Fig. we moved to New York was Liberty Travel, 1981. You can a magazine and through that magazine came new interest in the world. It is also one of the driest places on earth. see the sewing in all my pieces. And where does the sewing in my work. He invited me to be part of a group show at This desert was inhabited by many indigenous cultures. come from? It comes from a Chilean myth. There was the Henry Street Settlement in . After the It is also a place where you can find buried bodies, a Chilean tribe in Chile that used a kind of witchcraft to group show, I realized, wait a minute, goodness all the mummies. Miners and others from the region were taken Fig. 4 — Stills from USA, where liberty is a statue, find out secrets. They had certain human beings inside artists in that show were all the big names in political art. and dumped in the desert during the time of Pinochet. New York Times Square, 1987, caves and they would close all the orifices in the body Very quickly my work was seen as feminist work. So I was Their bodies just were thrown in the desert. There are still video documentation of Public Art Fund commission, so that the bad spirits couldn’t come out of the bodies. So always included within different groups. women today who are searching the terrain for the bones 30 seconds, looped, color, sound that gave me the idea of sewing. I started using a method of their loved ones. of sewing with maps of Chile and with newspapers so that TM: Which ones for example? the bad spirits couldn’t come out. That was the basic idea. CP: Latinas and Latinos, women of color, political TM: Also towards the end I would like to ask another But then censorship created a lot of tension and this artists, and feminist artists. I was never part of the main question: You have in 2010 worked on a text based

concept made sense in Chile. art world. I was always on the fringes. intervention in the public space in Valparaiso. Can you LUD Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38, 2011 38, Ludlow Residencies Curatorial Goethe-Institut /

MINI tell us a little more about the project? — at Parra Catalina view, Installation 9

Fig. TM: So most of these collages come from using material TM: Do you see your work as feminist work? CP: The piece that I did for Valparaiso was a of ? CP: I am a political artist and a human being that is projection of an excerpt of “La Araucana,” one of the few CP: Yes, I used the New York Times always as my active and aware. How could I not identify with feminism? “poemas epicos” (Poema del MIO CID in Spain, “alma mater.” Like I used to do with the Chilean I was also part of the exhibition Wack! Art and the La Chanson de Roland in France, The Nibelungen in newspaper El Mercurio before. The headlines become a Feminist Revolution (2008) that was organized by MoMA, Germany, La Araucana in Chile). “La Araucana” was template. I would read the paper everyday and when PS1 and the MOCA in Los Angeles. It was the first written by a poet who was also a soldier named Alonso I found a headline for the basis of a work, I would go out historical exhibition to look at feminist art. This was de Ercilla y Zúñiga. It was published in Spain in 1569. and buy a number of them. I would then start to piece the a very important show for the art of women. He talks about the Araucanos, the original inhabitants work together. of Chile and their fight for freedom from the Spaniards TM: What other shows in the 1980s in New York were that had invaded their territory. He admires their TM: This stitching is something that comes through important for you? courage, their pride, and their quest for freedom. Until

in a variety of works. There is a constant referral to CP: Well there was INTAR, which stands for today the relationship of the Chilean government and the L censorship and to covering up? International Arts Relation Gallery. Inverna Lockpez Araucanos is problematic. Their land has been taken CP: Yes, but on the other hand, sewing also puts ran the gallery. She is a Cuban painter. She promoted the away, they are treated as terrorists when they protest, etc. things back together. It mends. In this sense, it is used also work of many artists that had never been shown in New I prepared that piece as an homage to the Araucanos,

to try to construct or reconstruct a reality, to put things York who had multicultural backgrounds. It was on 43rd through the voice of a Spanish soldier and poet, written O together. I think women always try to make things look Street but has now disappeared. The same thing that many centuries ago, who treats them with respect and better or at least intend to do so by sewing. It is an attempt happened to – it is not what it used honors them – in contrast to what happens in Chile to keep the family together, through this type of action to be. At a time in the 1980s all the galleries were showing today. The piece was made in the context of “V Congreso and others. Trying to create a coherent reality, whatever political art. Then there was The Decade Show: Internacional de la Lengua Española” and as part of

that means. Frameworks of Identity in the 80s organized by the New “Valparaiso: Intervenciones.” W 38 Museum of Contemporary Art, the Studio Museum and TM: Let’s talk a little bit in more details about these the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art. It was a TM: Do you have any unrealized projects, Catalina? pieces such as this series, which bears the headline collaborative effort that included a huge amount of artists CP: After 20 years of living in NY, I went back to “Welcome Home”? that were working in the 1980s. Some of the big names like Latin America and rediscovered smells and landscapes CP: I used this headline “Welcome Home” when Adrian Piper, Bruce Nauman, Cindy Sherman, [Antoni] that I had forgotten while living in the First World. With soldiers were coming back from the war in Persian Gulf. Muntadas and lots of others. the words “globalization” and “Mc Donalds” in the back All the newspapers had a big announcement saying of my mind, I started recording in video format the rough “Welcome Home.” And I said to myself welcome home TM: At that time you also started working as an artist landscape of Argentina, the Desierto de Atacama in to what? And the image in the work is the explosion educator in schools and museums. What was that Chile, and the interaction between animals and human of Mount St. Helens – that happened almost at the experience like? beings. I am working on the next phase of my project with same time. CP: Once I received my green card I was able to teach. the many hours of prerecorded material that I brought I used to teach at El Museum del Barrio. I taught with back to New York. TM: So “Welcome Home” to nothing? Pepón Osorio. It was very community based back then. CP: Yes, and when they came back there were After, I taught at the of Contemporary Art,