Abel Azcona

A wide selection of works by Abel Azcona covers his relationship with motherhood, with gestation and with the political relationship established by the creator with his own mother. The works Biological Meeting, a sequence of images where the artist dialogues with different pregnant mothers in different processes. Some of them, in a position to give their child up for adoption, therefore in pre-adoption, others with desired pregnancies. In the photographs during the performance developed at the Center for Contemporary Art in Huarte, Azcona dialogues with each of them. In the work Vaginas Anónimas Azcona photographically documents in different cities vulvas of anonymous women with different experiences, some of prostitution, abuse or mistreatment and connects them with his own life experience, and with that of his mother. In Biological Meeting Azcona dialogues with different breast milk, and talks about pregnancy, childbirth and feeding from his position as a child abandoned by his mother. All the pieces connected to Azcona's motherhood and gestation and childhood experience were curated and exhibited under the name “Abel Azcona | Not wanted. A retrospective vision of the artist” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bogotá for three months.

______________________

Una amplia selección de obras de Abel Azcona abarca su relación con la maternidad, con la gestación y con la relación política establecida por el creador con su propia madre. Las obras Encuentro Biológico, una secuencia de imágenes donde el artista dialoga con diferentes madres embarazadas en diferentes procesos. Algunas de ellas, en posición de dar a su hijo en adopción, por lo tanto en pre-adopción, otras con embarazados deseados. En las fotografías durante la performance desarrollada en el Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Huarte, Azcona dialoga con cada una de ellas. En la obra Vaginas Anónimas Azcona documenta fotográficamente en diferentes ciudades vulvas de mujeres anónimas con diferentes experiencias, algunas de prostitución, de abuso o maltrato y las conecta con su propia experiencia vital, y con la de su madre. En Encuentro Biológico Azcona dialoga con diferentes leches maternas, y habla de la gestación, el parto y la alimentación desde su posición de niño abandonado por su madre. Todas las piezas con conexión con la maternidad y experiencia de gestación e infancia de Azcona fueron comisariadas y expuestas bajo el nombre “Abel Azcona | No Deseado. Una visión retrospectiva del artista” en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Bogotá durante tres meses.

Biological Meeting is a research work concluded in a performative photographic series. For more than six months, the artist has contacted several mothers who have given their children up for adoption and some in pre-adoption situations. Through these experiences, he ends up performing at the Center for Contemporary Art in Huarte, a museum near his hometown of Pamplona. This performance consists of dialogues with the bodies of different pregnant mothers. This whole process is documented.

Encuentro Biológico es una obra de investigación concluida en una serie fotográfica performativa. Durante más de seis meses el artista contacta con varias madres que han dado a sus hijos en adopción y con algunas en situación de preadopción. A través de esas experiencias termina realizando una performance en el Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Huarte, un museo cerca de su ciudad de origen Pamplona. Esta performance consiste en diálogos con los cuerpos de diferentes madres embarazadas. Todo ese proceso es documentado. 

The Nourishment is an installation and performative work designed the artist Abel Azcona in the city of Madrid and later in the exhibition "Not Wanted" at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bogotá. An exhibition that seeks to explore through photography and installation a new stage in his way of creating. The artist developed in The Nourishment a new nascent language of interaction with himself around gestation, abandonment and motherhood. This autobiographical and bodily exploration has been the cornerstone of Azcona's research work throughout his entire life and artistic journey. A work that entangles the artist's biographical experience with a careful visual poetry to ask us first-hand about the problematic environment of abortion, abandonment and motherhood.

This self-investigation led to an installation where the documentation of the performative process is the protagonist along with the visitors, who become the triggers at both performative and conceptual levels. An organic installation whose plasticity places it on the border between the ephemeral and the installation.

A language as traditional as photography is used, however, when exploring other formats such as installation, the work questions the use of language and its limits, urging the visitor to consider what there is left when the language of tradition ends. Breastfeeding is a symbol of union between mother and child, but in Azcona's life experience, the bond is broken since the first day of life. In the process of research prior to the work, the artist fed for days only on breast milk donated by lactating women. In the photographic performative process we can observe a dialogue between the artist and the liquid food donated by a mother with the same name as his own: Victoria.

La alimentación es una obra instalativa y performativa diseñada por el artista Abel Azcona en la ciudad de Madrid y posteriormente dentro de la muestra “No Deseado” en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Bogotá. Una muestra expositiva que busca explorar mediante la fotografía y la instalación una nueva etapa de su forma de crear. El artista desarrolla en La alimentación un nuevo lenguaje naciente de la interacción consigo mismo en torno a la gestación, el abandono y la maternidad. Exploración autobiográfica y corporal que ha sido la piedra angular del trabajo de investigación de Azcona a lo largo de su todo su recorrido vital y artístico. Una obra que enreda la experiencia biográfica del artista con una cuidada poesía visual para plantearnos en primera persona la problemática entorno al aborto, el abandono y la maternidad.

Esta auto investigación dio origen a una instalación donde la documentación del proceso performativo es protagonista junto con los visitantes los cuales pasan a ser los detonantes tanto a nivel performativo como a nivel conceptual. Una instalación orgánica cuya plasticidad la sitúa en la frontera entre lo efímero y lo instalativo. Se utiliza un lenguaje tan tradicional como la fotografía, sin embargo, al explorar otros formatos como la instalación, la obra cuestiona el uso del lenguaje y sus límites, instando al visitante a plantearse qué es lo que hay cuando el lenguaje de la tradición finaliza. La lactancia es un símbolo de unión entre la madre y el hijo, pero en la experiencia vital de Azcona, el vínculo está roto desde el primer día de vida. En el proceso de investigación previo a la obra el artista se alimenta durante días únicamente de leche materna donada por mujeres lactantes. En el proceso performativo fotográfico podemos observar un diálogo del artista con el líquido alimenticio donado por una madre con el mismo nombre que la suya propia: Victoria.

Some selected pieces from Biological Meeting belong to the collection of the Alicia Hevia Gallery and to the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bogotá. All the works were exposed in the exhibition Unearthed: A retrospective view of the political and subversive work of the artist Abel Azcona dedicated to the creator by the Pamplona City Council.

____________________

Algunas piezas seleccionadas de Encuentro Biológico pertenecen a la colección de la Galería Alicia Hevia y a la colección permanente del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Bogotá. Todas las obras fueron expuestas en la muestra Desenterrados: Una visión retrospectiva en torno a la obra política y subversiva del artista Abel Azcona dedicada al creador por el Ayuntamiento de Pamplona.

Eleven thousand one hundred and twenty-three photographs of vulvas and vaginas photographed in twenty-seven countries of the world. The capitals of countries like Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Argentina, the United States or Guatemala opened galleries and museums with processes where we could meet dozens of women at the doorstep waiting to be photographed in the inside. For more than a year, the action was developed, every week through a call. Later they were exposed together with texts of feminist and empowerment content. The artist carried put different performances with results created from the original photographs. Conceptually, the term anonymous was important to Azcona, due to the anonymity of his own biological mother, when she abandoned him at birth.

____________________

Once mil ciento veintitrés fotografías de vulvas y vaginas fotografías en veintisiete países del mundo. Las capitales de países como Colombia, México, España, Argentina, Estados Unidos o Guatemala abrieron galerías y museos con procesos donde podíamos encontrarnos a las puertas decenas de mujeres en espera de ser fotografiadas en el interior. Durante más de un año, se desarrolló la acción, todas las semanas mediante convocatoria. Posteriormente fueron expuestas junto a textos de contenido feminista y de empoderamiento. El artista realizó diferentes performances con resultados creados desde las fotografía originales. Conceptualmente era importante para Azcona el término anónimo, por el anonimato de su propia madre biológica, al abandonarle al nacer.

"No Deseado" is a retrospective vision of the artist Abel Azcona presented during 2014 and 2015 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bogotá. Exhibition with photography, video art, performance art and installation works created by the artist from 2004 to 2014.

Being the son of a drug addict prostitute who could only see an error in him from his conception, was a sentence that life dictated in a tyrannical and totalitarian way to Abel Azcona, condemning him, from his gestation, to a placenta full of psychoactive substances and liquor, in addition to the misery and nightmare that he meant for his mother, who not only forced him to live an unwanted life, but also abandoned him at random from the roads, through which, in a search to find himself or, rather, to forget himself, led him to live the nightmares of sexual abuse, physical and mental abuse, drug addiction, discrimination and, at best, suicide attempt.

Azcona's critical and artistic thinking and his insatiable need to understand why he was the unwanted, the unloved, the abandoned, have led him to make his artistic processes, universes that allow him to incarnate in the first person and in an aggressive way, heartbreaking and abrupt, the possible scenarios of prostitution, drug addiction, abuse and abandonment that he believes framed his mother.

An attempt to “put himself in the shoes” of that woman with whom he shares his genes, a life dedicated to forgetting, remembering, understanding and hating her. A ghost that he himself has created to survive and give meaning to his life, in spite of himself.

Abel Azcona's processes constitute a theoretical and practical investigation of an autobiographical nature, in which he has always developed scenarios related to pregnancy, bonding, abuse, abandonment, prostitution, motherhood and discrimination. Allowing him to understand his own experiences and, on many occasions, those of those who participate in his collective actions, where he uses the body as a tool of resistance and catharsis that confront with his fears, anxieties, sadness, disorders and desires, among other bodily and mental states of the human being, involving in his experiential acts others who also want to face their demons, face them and, thus, identify them to try to overcome them. It is impossible to speak of his singular work, with each intervention there are also new people, contexts and objectives that create unique processes, but with the same intention: to generate spaces of confrontation, mourning and catharsis through collective artistic and plastic acts that start from reality and problems of those who participate in them.

Unwanted, it is a symbolic dialogue through which the artist seeks to converse with his biological mother, who is his greatest shadow and demon and to whom, paradoxically, he has dedicated his life, which she should have denied, since for Azcona abortion is the best option and the only thing he has against him is not having been able to make part of his infamous statistics. He considers life to be the cruelest gesture in a moralistic society, full of rules for judging and being raped.

This exhibition includes the photographic record of three performance processes, the first, Feed me, hints, through breast milk and the artist's gesture when shaking and spilling it, the non-relationship and the broken link that Azcona had with his mother from birth.

The second, Biological Meeting, is the record of seven days of contact actions with people residing in Pamplona and San Sebastián (Spain), who had in common injuries from abandonment, abuse and mistreatment. The last one, Vaginas Anónimas, is a project carried out in New York, San Francisco and Bogotá, where once again Azcona, through the collection of ten thousand photographs of vaginas, thinks of his birth from other women and not from his biological mother, act that allows him to seek a link of renewal, which in some way constitutes the possibility of being born again.

This sharp and critical work hopes to confront the MAC public, visitors and communities to generate reflections on issues that constitute common places for all.

Juan David Quintero

Curatorship.