(UN)EMBROIDERING PERIPHERIES AT CASA HOFFMANN

Since early modernity, embroidery has been considered as a practice typical of the feminine world, that in which women should be educated to feel pleased, be industrious, and fulfill their feminine duty. One of the tasks that the girls had to complete in their training process was the sampler, an initiatory task of needle and thread, a demonstration of practice, but also of feminine virtues and perfection.

“Also since modernity, the practice of embroidery has been criticized by both men and women,” writes Caridad Botella, curator of the exhibition, “especially those who wanted to distance themselves from feminine duties and have a more masculine lifestyle, with freedom of movement and thought. They considered it vain, superficial, purely manual, not very intellectual, among others. In reality, embroidery has been an act of resistance, of generating pleasure, setting aside alone time, of inhabiting one's own space and enabling personal expression for those women who assumed the work with pleasure and not with resignation. Anyone dedicated to embroidery is heir to a tradition, to a history that defines its practice with respect to all the opinions that have been expressed about embroidery. Over time, embroidery has been configured as a peripheral activity. From the beginning of the s. In the 20th century and particularly in contemporary times, the peripheral has unquestionably jumped into artistic practices.”

The DECHADO exhibition shares the works of a diverse group of artists who make use of embroidery as part of their process, either constantly or occasionally. They contribute to the construction of an artistic language that allows us to reflect on the very practice of contemporary embroidery as an act of resistance and expression that oscillates between the gestural, the manual, the intimate, the social and the technological. Each of the participating artists poses a use of embroidery that leads to different concepts, such as the shamanic power of the needle, the construction of male and female identities, collective work, nature, the driving power of the threads or the search for unconventional supports within the artistic practice itself.

Taking into account the very variety of the works and the anthological nature of the curatorship, this exhibition constitutes a starting point from which we can identify trends, themes and forms of expression; In this way, DECHADO alludes to the samplers elaborated in the work of the thread and the needle.

Participating artists:

Alejandra Fernández, Ana Isabel Diez Zuluaga, Raúl Marroquín, Carmenza Estrada, Carmenza Kafarela, Chirrete Golden, Dijane, Gloria Herazo, Indira Gizé, Iván Cano Mejía, Iván Navarro, Jorge Barco, Lady Bionika, Laura Renée Maier, Manel Quintana, Margaret Mariño, Maria Camila Sanjinés, Natalia Behaine, Natalia Manzo, Nicole Mazza, Ramón Laserna, Seminario El Costurero, Tatiana Castillo.

About the curator:

Caridad Botella has a degree in Art History from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She has a Master's degree in Museology from Reinwardt Academy, Amsterdam and in Film Studies from the Universiteit van Amsterdam. She has worked in the painting department of Sotheby's Amsterdam and as director of the Witzenhausen gallery in the same city. She is currently the curator of SINFONÍA TÓPICO, a scientific-artistic platform with an educational emphasis which revolves around the loss of biodiversity, deforestation and climate change in Colombia. Between 2016 and 2020 she worked as head of the NC-arte Educational Project. She has been part of the selection committee for the Spotlight section of the Barcú fair (2015-2019). She is currently an independent curator and recurring contributor to publications like ARTNEXUS.

DECHADO

Curated by Charity Bottle

Until Saturday May 28th, 2022

Casa Hoffmann

Cra. 2A #70 – 25 – Bogotá, Colombia