Abel Azcona

Línea de tiempo [Time line] (1988-2024) is an artistic and performance work. The piece is process-based, having been created involuntarily during the artist’s early childhood development. During 2022 and 2023, Azcona activates in public the creation of his own timeline, based on traumatic events, with original documents, data, dialogues, and public narrations. One of artistic results of the artist’s timeline is the line created to describe Azcona’s chronology from his family ties. Object, documents, performance. Selection of biographical timeline on family issues.

Línea de tiempo (1988 - 2024) es una obra artística y de performance de contenido biográfico. La pieza tiene una base procesual, al ser creada de manera involuntaria durante los primeros años de infancia y crecimiento del artista. Durante los años 2022 y 2023 Azcona activa en público la creación de su propia línea de tiempo, basada en sucesos traumáticos, con documentación original, datos, diálogos y narraciones públicas. Uno de los resultados plásticos de la línea biográfica del artista es la línea creada para describir la cronología del artista desde sus vínculos familiares. Objeto, documentos, performance. Selección de línea de tiempo biográfica adecuada a temáticas familiares.

Last year, the idea arose of creating timelines to accompany the exhibitions and the new pieces with the aim of helping the viewer to understand all the movements and triggers for the performative pieces of a more process-based character. Thus, in Volver al padre [Returning to the father], the timeline is directed at all those traumatic events marked by abuse, neglect, or abandonment featuring father figures. The current show Mis familias 1988-2024 triples the length of the timeline, as it involves events not only featuring paternity but all type of family contamination. Although the timeline emerged as a guide conceived for the public, for me it has been one of the most intimate and cathartic processes possible. When I construct them, adapting them to each work or place, I do so in public during performative acts or open artistic residencies. Thus, many of them live and drink from the collectivization of the story.

To be able to read on a large white wall with vinyl all the painful experiences suffered is an exercise of great complexity but one that helps as an act of recognising and accepting trauma. Violence is not come to terms with until it is named, until it is read, until it is shared. The great revolution of people marked by trauma is sharing it until the bullies and the abusers are brought down and a face is put on the ghosts. I believe that in some way the total timeline –one not adapted to an exhibition framework – is pending, but I suppose that it will arrive. If the timeline on a wall hurts, imagine what it means to have it marked in the skin for ever.

Victoria Luján tries to interrupt her unwanted pregnancy on three occasions, but this is not possible in conservative Pamplona. In the face of this impossibility, with the rights of both denied, she continues with the pregnancy. Abel Azcona is born at the Montesa clinic in Madrid, premature and with evident signs of withdrawal syndrome. Abel and his mother are urgently transferred to the maternity unit of the Niño Jesús hospital. Azcona spends three weeks in an incubator. Victoria Luján Gutiérrez then abandons the child in the hospital. Manuel Lebrijo, Victoria’s romantic partner, collects the child from the hospital and takes him to Pamplona. Manuel is sent to prison and Abel stays with the former’s family in a precarious situation. He lives with many other abandoned children in the apartment of Manuel’s mother. In prison, Manuel meets a catechist and social worker for the Catholic charity Cáritas who is interested in the boy he presents as his son: Abel Lebrijo. On 1 April, Abel Azcona is baptized in the church of San Vincent de Paul, organized by the Cáritas volunteer at the prison where Manuel is detained.

The timeline is an installation of words and documents that consists of showing my history of pain without any type of timidity or sweetening. In a cold, almost aseptic way, I list each mistreatment, each abuse, and each abandonment that in some way has forged who I am today. In classes at the Catholic school, they got us to make historical chronologies, with dates that were important or one to celebrate; here the great difference is that I would have preferred than none of these events had ever happened.

El año pasado surgió la idea de crear lineas de tiempo que acompañaran las muestras expositivas y las nuevas piezas con el fin de ayudar al espectador a entender todos los momentos y detonantes de las piezas performativas de carácter más procesual. Así en Volver al padre la línea de tiempo estaba dirigida a todos aquellos acontecimientos traumáticos marcados por el abuso, la negligencia o el abandono protagonizados por figuras paternas. En la muestra actual Mis familias 1988-2024 triplicamos el tamaño de la línea de tiempo al ser sucesos no solo protagonizados por la paternidad sino por cualquier tipo de contaminación familiar. Aunque la línea de tiempo surge como una guía pensada para el público, para mi supone uno de los procesos más íntimos y catárticos posibles. La construcción de las mismas, adaptadas a cada obra o lugar, las realizo de manera pública en momentos de actos performativos o residencias artísticas en abierto. Así que muchas de ellas viven y beben de la colectivización del relato.

Poder leer en una gran pared blanca mediante vinilo todas las experiencias dolientes sufridas es un ejercicio de gran complejidad pero que ayuda como acto de reconocimiento y aceptación del trauma. La violencia no se asume hasta que se nombra, hasta que se lee, hasta que se comparte. La gran revolución de las personas marcadas por el trauma es compartirlo hasta tumbar a los maltratadores, a los abusadores y poner rostro a los fantasmas. Creo que de alguna manera está pendiente la linea de tiempo total y no únicamente adaptada a un marco expositivo, pero supongo que llegará. Si la linea de tiempo en una pared duele, imaginad lo que supone tenerla marcada en la piel para siempre.

Victoria Luján intenta interrumpir el embarazo no deseado hasta en tres ocasiones, no siendo posible en la conservadora Pamplona. Ante la imposibilidad, negado el derecho de ambos, continua el embarazo. Abel Azcona nace en la Clínica Montesa de Madrid de manera prematura y con evidente síndrome de abstinencia. Abel y su madre son trasladados de urgencia a la maternidad del Hospital Niño Jesús. Azcona es introducido durante tres semanas en una incubadora. Victoria Luján Gutierrez consecuentemente le abandona en el Hospital Niño Jesús. Manuel Lebrijo, pareja sentimental de Victoria, recoge al niño en el Hospital y se traslada junto a él a Pamplona. Manuel ingresa en prisión y Abel permanece con la familia de él en situación de precariedad. Convive con muchos otros niños abandonados en el piso de la madre de Manuel. Manuel conoce en prisión a una catequista y trabajadora social de Cáritas que se interesa en el que él presenta como su hijo: Abel Lebrijo. El 1 de abril Abel Azcona es bautizado en la Parroquia San Vicente de Paúl organizado por la voluntaria de Cáritas en la prisión donde se encuentra Manuel.

La línea de tiempo es una instalación de palabra y documento que consiste en mostrar mi historia de dolor sin ningún tipo de miramiento o edulcorado. De forma fría casi aséptica enumero cada maltrato, cada abuso y cada abandono que de alguna manera han forjado quien soy hoy. En clases del colegio católico nos hacían hacer cronologías históricas, con fechas importantes o a celebrar, aquí la gran diferencia es que hubiera preferido que ninguna de esos sucesos hubiera acontecido nunca.

1987 Victoria Luján tries to interrupt her unwanted pregnancy on three occasions, but this is not possible in conservative Pamplona. In the face of this impossibility, with the rights of both denied, she continues with the pregnancy.

1988 Abel Azcona is born at the Montesa clinic in Madrid, premature and with evident signs of withdrawal syndrome.

Abel and his mother are urgently transferred to the maternity unit of the Niño Jesús hospital. Azcona spends three weeks in an incubator.

Victoria Luján Gutiérrez then abandons the child in the hospital.

Manuel Lebrijo, Victoria’s romantic partner, collects the child from the hospital and takes him to Pamplona.

1989 Manuel is sent to prison and Abel stays with the former’s family in a precarious situation. He lives with many other abandoned children in the apartment of Manuel’s mother.

In prison, Manuel meets a catechist and social worker for the Catholic charity Cáritas who is interested in the boy he presents as his son: Abel Lebrijo.

On 1 April, Abel Azcona is baptized in the church of San Vincent de Paul, organized by the Cáritas volunteer at the prison where Manuel is detained.

1991 Abel Azcona starts foster care with different families, because of the violence and negligence in his care. The first of these is the family of the prison social worker.

Abel Azcona is schooled by his Catholic foster family in a school linked to extreme Catholicism, where the whole family had previously been educated.

Manuel Lebrijo, recognized as the biological father but not having custody, retains visiting rights. But before long he does not attend the meeting where he is supposed to hand back Abel at the duck pond in the Taconera Park.

Manuel Lebrijo and his new romantic partner Arantza Raposa travel to Badajoz with Abel Azcona without having custody of the child.

1992 Situations of violence, mistreatment, and sexual abuse of Abel by both parties occur repeatedly.

The national police find the boy in Olivenza, a village of Badajoz, and custody and visiting rights are removed from Manuel Lebrijo on a permanent basis.

1994 Abel Azcona is definitively adopted by one of the foster families. The same Catholic family of the first fostering. The fostering was done by the grandparents and the definitive adoption by their daughter: the social worker and catechist at the prison.

1995 From this point Abel Lebrijo González is legally named Abel Azcona Ema. The surnames of his adoptive mother.

Azcona becomes part of all the Catholic organizations frequented by his new mother. They belong to extreme Catholic catechesis groups close to Opus Dei.

2001 Azcona’s adoptive mother begins a romantic relationship, after having adopted Abel as a single woman.

Abel Azcona is expelled from the Catholic school for bad behaviour.

Abel Azcona receives schooling at a public centre.

2004 Azcona is adopted by his mother’s new romantic partner. After reversing the order of the surnames, he returns to being Abel Azcona.

Situations of violence and disagreement with the adoptive family become worse.

2005 Abel Azcona makes a serious attempt at suicide and is admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

Abel Azcona carries out his first action in the streets of Pamplona, the day after being discharged from the psychiatric clinic. A professor at the School of Art explains to him that he has made his first performance.

2006 Abel Azcona definitively abandons the adoptive family, which then renounces him.

Abel Azcona then lives for a year and a half in the street, where he repeats the known patterns of his biological mother: prostitution and drug use.

2008 After living in the street in Madrid for two years, Abel Azcona tries to return to the adoptive family in Pamplona. After two months of failed cohabitation, Azcona returns to the street.

Abel Azcona obtains from the Navarra courts the full file on his abandonment and adoption, which details the withdrawals of custody, abuse, maltreatment, and everything related the abandonment, kidnapping, and later adoption.

2010 Azcona’s adoptive mother contacts the artist to tell him that she had put all the photographs of his childhood – torn out of albums and frames – into a bag to be thrown into the rubbish. They eventually agree to meet, and she throws him the bag from her car. It is the last time that Azcona sees his adoptive mother in person.

2012 Abel Azcona has his first individual exhibition, which explores the mother figure, at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogotá.

Abel Azcona premieres in Bogotá the work “Empatía y prostitución” [Empathy and prostitution], where he prostitutes his body in a bed. The work is later performed in Madrid, Houston, and Tirana.

2013 Abel Azcona exhibits for the first time his full abandonment and adoption file, converting it into an artwork under the title “Expediente 09872” [File 09872].

2015 Abel Azcona narrates for the first time his sexual abuse in detail in the piece “La sombra” [The shadow] together with other testimonies of child sex abuse.

2016 After dozens of pieces about the mother figure, Azcona creates “Los Padres” [The fathers], the first piece in which the artist questions and denounces the paternal figure, in his case an unknown father, the client of a prostitute.

2020 Abel Azcona decides to create a work about fatherhood, this time including the man who appears in the abandonment and adoption certificate as his biological father, involving Manuel Lebrijo and making an appointment to meet him at the duck pond in the Taconera Park.

Abel Azcona and Manuel Lebrijo travel for three days from Pamplona to Badajoz, repeating the route taken during the withdrawal of custody and later kidnapping thirty years earlier.

In December 2020, Azcona places a plaque in defence of his right not to have been born at the Montesa clinic in Madrid. The plaque is denounced and removed by anti-abortion organizations.

2021 Manuel Lebrijo and Abel Azcona meet a year after the journey in a performance in which they stand on two pedestals in the Sala Amós Salvador in Logroño.

Manuel Lebrijo renounces an affective filial relationship with Abel Azcona after seeing himself described in the press and the documentation of the project as an abusive figure.

2022 On 2 June the final exhibition “Volver al padre” [Return to the father] opens at the Sala Amós Salvador in Logroño.

In October 2022, Abel Azcona closes the cycle of works about the mother figure, creating the piece “La savia” [The sap] where he injects heroin in empathy with his biological mother, a work curated by Marina Abramović.

2023 Abel Azcona, in the context of the Biennial of Barcelona, creates the work “Línea de tiempo” [Timeline], as a continuation of the first line exhibited in the exhibition “Volver al Padre” and develops it focusing on trauma.

Azcona starts the work “Cartas a Soraya” [Letters to Soraya] in an accidental way, given the new contact with his sister, Manuel Lebrijo’s daughter, also abused and mistreated. They meet each other for the first time in a performance that takes places on the same pedestals used with their father.

On 28 October the exhibition “Mis familias 1988-2024” [My families 1988-2024] opens, in which for the first time Azcona places all his work around motherhood face to face with all his work about fatherhood and his new positioning in and from art.

Timeline Montage Adapted to the Figure of the Father in the Framework of the Exhibition Return to the Father by Abel Azcona at the Sala Amós Salvador in Logroño. / Montaje de la Linea de tiempo adaptada a la figura del padre en el marco de la exposición Volver al Padre de Abel Azcona en la Sala Amós Salvador de Logroño.

Timeline Montage Adapted to the Figure of the Father in the Framework of the Exhibition Return to the Father by Abel Azcona at the Sala Amós Salvador in Logroño. / Montaje de la Linea de tiempo adaptada a la figura del padre en el marco de la exposición Volver al Padre de Abel Azcona en la Sala Amós Salvador de Logroño.