| Dates: | born 1964
| | Biography: | 1964 Born in Santiago de Chile, Chile.
Lives and works in Mexico City
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1999 Bordado 1994-1998, Museo
National de Bellas Artes, Santiago,
Instituto Cultural Cabanas, Guadalajara
1997 Salon, San Miguel de Allende
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1999 Mexico Nuevo, Centre d'Art
Plastique de Villefranche,
Musee de la Vallee Barcelonette, France
1997 Mexico Now: Point of Departure,
Riffe Gallery, Columbus;
Asilo de Beneficiencia, San Juan;
Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte;
The Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh;
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago;
Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston
(1997-99)
Mexican Contemporary Art,
Louis Stern Fine Art, Los Angeles
FURTHER READING
Arriola, M. "Carlos Arias, Galeria OMR,"
Art Nexus (Feb.-Mar. 1997)
Osuna, I. "Breaking Boundaries," Arte
Contemporaneo Mexicano (May 1997)
Sanchez, 0. "Bordano Bordes,"
Reforma, 4 Dec. 1996 | | | Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | | Date of source: | 1999 |
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| | Description: | Carlos Arias embroiders immaculate
designs with tiny stitches, creating a
visual repertoire of images related to the
body. The intimacy of the medium itself,
with its suggestion of repetitive touch,
lends a peculiar poignancy to these
bodily associations. Traditional folk
decorations are also referenced, and one
is inevitably reminded of the traditional
labour of peasant women who can be
seen today on the streets of Mexico City
embroidering cloth for the tourist trade.
Like these women -whose motifs are
emblematic of Mexico's indigenous
cultures - Arias uses his medium as a
kind of writing. As objects, his designs
translate the silences of history into the
language of embroidery.
In his earlier embroideries Arias
represented the human body more
directly, often using an x-ray view to 'see
inside' his subject. Reminiscent of the
imagery of Frida Kahlo, this device has
its origins in Mexican surrealism. In
more recent works like Autorretrato de
Uso (Wearing Self-portrait) Arias
represents the body at one remove by
making detailed replicas of fragments of
his own clothing. The present work
includes a set of 80 small, framed
embroideries that hang in a tight grid 780
cm long. Flanking these are two larger,
relatively abstract enlarge¬ments of the
fabric textures. The result is a composite
self-portrait imaged through Arias's
personal effects: an intimate and
ambiguous trace of the artist's presence.
| | Description Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | Description Source Date: | 1999 | | Gender: | male | | Type: | person |
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