Within the 10th Berlin Biennale, Johanna Unzueta is showing her production of drawings from recent years and newly produced works, which are presented in two formats: in large scale as a mural at ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics and in a display format resembling the exhibition design of Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi, as free-standing drawings mounted between two pieces of Plexiglas set into bases of recycled wooden beams. These drawings, which the artist considers non-bidimensional objects, are created through a process that can include dyeing the paper with indigo, fustic, or other natural pigments and puncturing it with needles.
To create the shapes in the drawings, Unzueta uses embroidery hoops from her collection of hundreds. The results are deli- cate oval, circular, and geometric forms activated by light and conveying the sensibility of textiles. Through these subtle but complex gestures, Unzueta inscribes traces of indigenous craft practices into the history of art, disrupting distinctions between art and craft, the traditional and the contemporary, while maintaining a critical engagement with the idea of progress, notions of labor, and their implications for human existence. Moreover, her artistic interventions open up and carry forward the dialogue with the history of geometric abstraction and conceptualism in Latin America.
—Fabiana Lopes
LIST OF WORKS
AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE
April 2015 NY, November 2015 Cuernavaca, 2015
Watercolor, pastel pencil on watercolor paper (añil tinted on reverse); Plexiglas frame, recycled wooden beams
Courtesy Johanna Unzueta
April/May 2016 NY, 2016
Watercolor, pastel pencil, and needle holes on tinted watercolor paper (añil); Plexiglas frame, recycled wooden beams
Courtesy Johanna Unzueta
December 2017, January 2018 NY, 2018
Pastel pencil, gold watercolor, and needle holes on tinted watercolor paper (añil); Plexiglas frame, recycled wooden beams
Courtesy Johanna Unzueta
Commissioned and produced by Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
January, February 2018 NY, 2018
Watercolor, pastel pencil, gold watercolor, and needle holes on tinted watercolor paper (añil and fustic); Plexiglasframe, recycled wooden beams
Courtesy Johanna Unzueta
Commissioned and produced by Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
May 2016 NY, 2016
Watercolor, pastel pencil, charcoal, and needle holes on tinted watercolor paper (añil and fustic); Plexiglas frame, recycled wooden beams
Courtesy Johanna Unzueta
Not Twins, June/November 2017 NY, 2017
2 drawings, pastel pencil, and needle holes on tinted watercolor paper (añil); Plexiglas frame, recycled wooden beams
Courtesy Johanna Unzueta
Commissioned and produced by Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
November 2017, January 2018 NY, 2018
2 drawings, pastel pencil, and needle holes on tinted watercolor paper (añil); Plexiglas frame, recycled wooden beams
Courtesy Johanna Unzueta
Commissioned and produced by Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
ZK/U – CENTER FOR ART AND URBANISTICS
Herringbone: Listen To The Whispers of The City, 2018
Pastels, screws, metal rods, colored PVC rope on wall
Courtesy Johanna Unzueta
Commissioned work produced by Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
Thanks to Ana Maria Millan, Andres Sandoval, Nicolas Gomes, Tessja Kissing