Mis Once Anillos Semipreciosos
Ana Quiroz
México 1966
My Eleven Semiprecious Rings
“In times of extinction,” in territories subdued by a human society obsessed with consumption and control, nature is replaced by the artificial.
The title of the exhibition is a phrase from Ben Lerner’s poem “Darkness Picks Up Our Empty Bottles,” and it perfectly encapsulates the sculptural series presented in My Eleven Semiprecious Rings. The curatorial vision encompasses two bodies of work: a selection of pieces produced since 2005, conceptually rooted in the paradoxes and dark complexities of the human species; and the most recent series, Furnished Landscapes, in which utilitarian objects are reconstructed to sarcastically comment on territories of nature subjected to abuse and control by an insatiable society. This condition has dramatically transformed the fields of San Miguel de Allende and other natural riches around the world. Ruthless land investment interests result in hundreds of “rootless assets”—an environment reshaped in favor of plastic and concrete territories.
Through a process of reconstruction and recovery, seemingly useless elements like shards of glass and thorns are assembled into untouchable objects—obsessively crafted, almost like jewelry—semiprecious entities. Transparency, glimmers, reflections, and forms that combine natural plant fragments in clear resin generate “in-between worlds” that attract, while simultaneously concealing more sinister places.
The old is brought into play through familiar objects from grandparents—those bearing traces of the past, silent witnesses that, in this context, resignify the desires of a complex society. These diatribes speak through materiality as an aesthetic prelude, but they also engage ecological, ethical, political, and social concerns—articulating a potential act of transformation and resistance.
Ana Quiroz
Curated by Selma Guisande
