Carla Zaccagnini

Sobre la igualdad y las diferencias: casas gemelas (On Equality and Differences: Twin Houses)

2005

Sobre la igualdad y las diferencias: casas gemelas

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This series of photographs by Carla Zaccagnini Sobre la igualdad y las diferencias: casas gemelas (On Equality and Differences: Twin Houses), taken in Havana in 2005, belongs to a wider group of works that the artist has been developing over many years, generally titled Bifurcaciones y encrucijadas (Forking Paths and Crossroads). These works are dedicated to the collection and investigation of similarities and singularities. Some focus on things that are supposed or expected to be identical, but end up being slightly different. Others focus on things that ought to be different but somehow obey similar principles. The photographs examine these issues on a temporal basis, for instance depicting groups of houses that were built to be the same but have been changed over the years according to the tastes, needs, and capabilities of their inhabitants. A playful, poetic quality underlies these displacements and juxtapositions, signifying subtle transformations of the everyday.

Carla Zaccagnini combines historical research with a variety of media and techniques. From drawing to installation, performance, text, video, exhibition curating, and written criticism, Zaccagnini investigates cultural exchange and social displacement, as well as the transformation of the symbolic value of images in contemporary culture. Zaccagnini views these multiple activities as mutually constitutive forms of inquiry that overlap to form a holistic, conceptually driven art practice. Often working by recontextualizing existing objects and ideas, she prompts viewers to question the limitations of language and representation, the fallibility of perception, and the construction of knowledge. Zaccagnini is part of a generation of Latin American artists that have addressed the political history of the continent and, more specifically but not exclusively, the history of Brazil. Having delved into the history of slavery, the influence of European aesthetics in Brazilian art, and its assimilation by indigenous cultures, Zaccagnini uses art as a conceptual instrument to undo the construction of history and the production of knowledge.

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Carla Zaccagnini Sobre la igualdad y las diferencias: casas gemelas (On Equality and Differences: Twin Houses)

Carla Zaccagnini

Sobre la igualdad y las diferencias: casas gemelas (On Equality and Differences: Twin Houses)