Abraham Cruzvillegas

Abraham Cruzvillegas (1968) employs an artistic method characterised by improvisation and perpetual change. His sculptures and installations typically take shape during the construction process and in dialogue with the space, the surrounding area or the people with whom he collaborates. He often uses found and recycled materials such as wood, bottles, car tyres, furniture and paper receipts. Not only is each of these objects imbued with its own history, they also take on new meanings based on how he combines and modifies them, see Autorretrato ciego ovolactovegetariano pero transgénico, 2010.

A key element of his artistic practice is autoconstrucción, borrowed from the do-it-yourself building tradition in Colonia Ajusco, the Mexico City neighbourhood where he grew up. There, residents build their homes using whatever materials are available, with ingenuity and no fixed plan. Cruzvillegas applies this logic – improvisation born of necessity – in his art. While his installations may sometimes appear fragmented or temporary, they exude a sense of power and urgency as well. Cruzvillegas also explores ideas like autodestrucción and autoconfusión, which he uses as a means to reflect on who we are, how we live together and the inequality in the world. 

With his hybrid method – somewhere between sculpture, installation, painting and drawing – Cruzvillegas poses questions about value, sustainability and the relationship between people and their surroundings. His art is simultaneously poetic and political, and often with a sense of humour: an ode to human inventiveness and change. Though his work bears traces of his own background and interests, it also invites the viewer to look closely and assign meanings of their own. What might look like trash at first is revealed to have potential value.