Graciela Olio: The Smallness of Houses is on view at Zolida Gallery, Buenos Aires
July 21 – October 28, 2023
Graciela Olio is an Argentinian ceramic artist. Her work stands within the context of Latin American social problems, focusing especially on her country, which faces local situations of social inequality and high poverty levels.
In recent years, she has taken the house as a symbolic object. Life in scarcity takes various forms, some of which are reflected in precarious, fragile, makeshift, ephemeral, unstable houses. Some are made of adobe, while others are not. They are located on the periphery of an unequal society, on the edge of an unfair system.
Experimenting with adobe has been on her mind for a long time. It is one of the earliest composite materials produced by humanity and has been used for over 10,000 years. The word adobe comes from the Arabic term al-tub, which means ‘unfired brick’.
The Architecture Project series aims to resignify and revalue the popular, primitive, and rural adobe architecture; this timeless architecture that protects and provides refuge to the people living in the interior of our country.
What is to resignify and revalue? It is to take a new look, from the perspective of art, a kind of homage to the primary, a celebration of the basics, of what constitutes us as social beings.
This exhibition includes a series of simple miniature furniture and daily household appliances: they are the smallness of houses, the smallness of these houses.
This project is a work in progress; it is not finished. It appeals to memory, lest we forget. It is small, minimal, brief, and it is made of clay; it is earth, it is fire, and it is water.
Text by Graciela Olio. Translation by Tomás Quinteros Pedraza
Contact
+541135430666
Zolida Gallery
Zabala 3091, C1426 DRE
Buenos Aires
Argentina
