Cecilia Vicuña Mentira: hace tira la mente (Lies Tear the Mind Apart) from the series AMAzone Palabrarmas 1978

  • Not on view

Vicuña was studying in London at the time of the 1973 military coup in Chile. Exiled from her home country, she committed herself to activism from abroad and to the research of Indigenous cultures of the Americas. During a trip across the Amazon rainforest in 1977, she had a vision of a palabrarma : a “word- weapon” that would mobilize poetic language as a form of political resistance. Each drawing in this series is a playful reinvention of existing words, unfolding new meanings out of their parts.

Gallery label from 2022
Medium
Ink and pencil on paper
Dimensions
sheet: 8 1/2 × 11" (21.6 × 27.9 cm)
Credit
Latin American and Caribbean Fund, Modern Women's Fund, gift of Agnes Gund, Amalia Amoedo, María Luisa Ferré Rangel (in honor of Cyril Meduña) and Juan Yarur Torres (in honor of Amalia Amoedo)
Object number
384.2021.24
Department
Drawings and Prints

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