OPENNING GABRIEL CANALES' ARCHIVE
Openning Gabriel Canales' Archive is the start of a research project into the life and work of the textile artist Gabriel Canales Salas (1954 Tecuala, Nayarit – Guadalajara, Jalisco 2017). His work reflects on domestic aesthetics and its relation with normed and queer narratives about the femininities–masculinities binary, not only through the quotidien scenes he frequently inmortalized with yarn , but mainly with his textile approach– soft, subtle precious and minute.
It was presented, without institutional protocol, as part of Un Nido en el Huracán by Otro.Espacio in Estudio Independencia during the notorious Premaco on February, 2020.
To open up –as a display gesture– is a reflex of our intuition WANTING TO KNOW, WANTING TO SHOW. There’s something of interest and it’s not clear what it is. Certainty is replaced with curiosity. This process is awkward, – incomplete even. Size enough not to ease the hunger but to stir up a craving.
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Gabriel’s Archive is a boxed-chronicle of his practice as a self-taught textile artist.
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Rigorously ordered folders. Boxes of different sizes containing all kinds of documents: photographs, slides, bureaucracies, personal peapes, i.d. Cards, stuffs and thingies THOSE FRAGMENTED OBJECTS FROM SOMETHING WE CAN’T REALLY TRACE BACK AND THAT IN AND OF ITSELF ARE SOMETHING, WHOSE SENTIMENTAL O AESTHETIC VALUE RENDER COLLECTIBLE and a whole lot of correspondence. Canales was in the habit of writing. His artistic and professional confections were well taken care of, always asking for some friend or colleague’s eye and time for edits. His personal correspondence was lighter on the precautions, which invited experimental and lush approaches to words. It was more ingenious as well.
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This curatorial exercise is made from intimacy, with romanticized memories, personal grief THIS YEAR IS TÍO GABRIEL’S THIRD DEATH ANNIVERSARY, and Tony’s incomplete memories and Macarena’s curiosity.
I was born thirty years ago in the coastal town of Tecuala, Nayarit.
“I’m going to my town, today is the day, I’m going to fill my soul.”
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At the age of eleven I went to live in Guadalajara, where I completed my dental studies and worked as a dentist for five years. Since December 1982 I have been traveling around Europe. In the summer of 1983 I began to make the little weavings that are my main source of survival, in every sense of the word. When I weave, I find the calm and reflection to continue weaving and the spirit to continue living, traveling and learning..
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What I enjoy the most continues to be the coastal music that was my lullaby and contains the flavor of life.
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Laziness, they say, can be creative. Manual work has a great therapeutic capacity. I discovered this fighting the homesickness I felt for Mexico.
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I don’t think what I have created is art, I’m only an artist to ‘please’ people. It’s difficult to do a lot of work a long way from where one was born: you have to gather together a lot of cotton to do a weaving. Perhaps it’s better to think of them as miniature weavings. But one learns. I’m self taught and the only thing I can be sure of is that there is a big difference between my first efforts and my most recent weavings. When I see you I hope I won’t bore you.
The photographs of the exhibition were taken by Aureliano.
Many Thank you’s to Paulina Barragán e Hiram Constantino for the space and invitation.
Also to a Ampelio Canales Morales, Alejandro Canales Morales, Ampelio Canales Zaragoza, Carlos David Mier Canales, Lina Canales Zaragoza, Ampelio Canales Salas, Socorro Zaragoza Bernal, Guadalupe Medel, Matilde Solar Romo, Rosy Morales Solar, Matilde Morales Solar, David and Mati Canales Morales. And thanks to Fátima Abarca y Juan Carlos Sánchez.
Exhibition #004 · official title: Abriendo el Archivo de Gabriel Canales · space: Estudio Independencia IDEPENDENCIA 787, GUADALAJARA, MEXICO · dates: 01–20 FEB.2020 during Un Nido en el Huracán #organized by Otro Espacio Guadalajara · diseño museográfico: Tony Marena · edición de textos: Tony LORENA CANALES · diseño gráfico: Macarena ALEJANDRO OLÁVARRI 2020TM
