ese entredós - Lucía Bayón
The title of this presentation, ese entredós, isborrowed from a verse of a poem by the artist Pepe Espaliú. In one of the artist’s final works,El nido, performed in 1993, he walked incontinuous circles on a platform mountedhigh up a tree for eight days, taking off onepiece of clothing every day until, on the lastone, he was stripped entirely naked. Movingbetween one end (fully clothed) and another(fully naked) on his wooden entrapment, theartist might have encountered a sudden fluidityof being: both concealed and exposed, neithercovered nor bare. Stuck in a transitional space,with two sides touching each other, his bodyformed a continuum.
Like Espaliú, Lucía Bayón is interested in movements of circularity and spaces in-between - specifically when it comes to the (de)construction of garments. The French word‘entredeux’, of which ‘entredós’ is a translation,refers to the intermediate state betweenextremes, to a piece of furniture placedamidst two windows, and most commonly,to a laddered stitching that joins pieces offabric together. The decorative holes of theembroidery open up as they bind. It is uponthese axes that Bayón presents her new body of work: a constellation of textile imaginaries, bas-reliefs and sculptures, shaped by gestures that interrogate material hierarchies and theconditions of production.
Sprawled across these rooms are dark bluearmours enforced with denim pulp and slimrectangles reminiscent of water troughs,patched together from plastered cardboard.Items of clothing have been unraveled at theseams, their parts inverted and laid out toform a new whole. Billowing folds, steps andsoles draw into creases as they protrude fromthe walls. These pieces are each based onprocesses that have become a constant inBayón’s practice: hours and hours are put intothe pulping of paper and cloth, whoseshredded fibers take on a renewed function asthe artist’s raw material. Combining industrialand manual processing methods, Bayónsustains a circuit - one that enmeshes theresidual in slow becoming.
In her formulation of the works the artisthas taken the notion of pattern as a guiding principle. The construction of garment patternsresembles that of the construction of a mould .Herein a set of abstracted, flat pieces - a pocket a shirt sleeve - come together and gain volume. A fullness is developed from surfaces.
ese entredós designates a liminal space whereprocesses permeate each other and binaryregimes of meaning-making are discarded.Instead we are met with a manifold tension,with an opaque accumulation of layers, wherethe weft has ripened into a thick materiality. Seamstresses used to hide private inscriptionsin the lining of coats and jackets, on the reverseof the fabric; the side that faces the interior ofa garment. Never seen by the wearer orbeholder, it is not quite in front of us, but not faraway either.
Dagmar Bosma
