Published in the catalogue From word to hand, Spanish Cultural Centre, Mexico, 2003

From word to hand.

                  

"From word to hand" is one of the first activities through which the Spanish Cultural Centre in Mexico explores the various two-way routes between both countries, with the aim of being a shared place for creation and cultural circulation. We're talking about stimulating the exchange of experiences that, in this case, try not to reinforce the traditional differences between "high" and "low" culture, art and crafts, authorship and anonimity. It is an attempt to promote both craftwork and young art, and also the connection between activities that, in spite of their unquestionable proximity, use to be kept separated.

This exhibition is born from the meeting between different ways of working and various approaches to object manufacture. Perla Krauze (Mexico city, 1953) and David Israel (Zaragoza, 1973) have collaborated with Mexican craftsmen in order to create sculptures, poetics of which lie in their physical presence and in the dialogues they establish with space. Many hands have taken part in producing these works, during a proccess of translations of verbally expressed ideas, sometimes accompanied by sketches.

Certain dialogues have been established between works depending on the materials: copper and lead, resin, black ceramics and aluminium, blown glass, sugar and chocolate. Perla and David, interested in materials, got in touch with the craftsmen álvaro Acevedo, Enrique Hernández, Carlomagno Pedro Martínez, Virginia Morales, Juan Manuel Ramírez and Julio Salinas. Specific ideas met with the experience of hands and traditions. The result is a group of objects that melt both conceptions, developed while the pieces were made, more or less distant from the starting point. We will be fair if we talk about co-authorship and almost always about surprise. At the end, materials are there, possible thanks to manufacture and forceful in spite of being subtle.

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