Atelier Talk | A Brief Discussion on Latin American Music — Viewing Abraham Cruzvillegas’s Works

Introduction

For Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas, music holds an important place in both his life and work. Cruzvillegas often imagines soundtracks for everyday activities, such as riding the subway, meeting friends, or visiting museums. In his artistic practice, he considers the connections between his sculptural works and musical styles, such as symphony, folk, punk, and samba. Winsing Arts Foundation is honored to invite Tzu-Ying Lin, associate professor and director of the Music and Image Trans-disciplinary (MIT) Program at Taipei National University of the Arts, as the keynote speaker for this lecture. The lecture will begin with a broad overview of Latin American musical culture and then focus on Cruzvillegas’ hometown, exploring representative Mexican musical styles and listening practices. It will also examine the musical references in the artist’s works, investigating the interplay between music and art in cultural expression, with the aim of providing audiences with a multi-perspectival exhibition experience.

In this exhibition, the Winsing Arts Foundation presents a series of sculptures and paintings by Cruzvillegas. His sculptures, composed and stacked from collected readymades, reflect the concept of Autoconstrucción (self-construction) that he has been developing since 2007. The works, appearing unfinished or improvised, resonate with Mexico’s developmental history and its cultural landscape. Through the process of constructing these works, the artist interprets life and his surroundings, while also metaphorically exploring his identity. Most of the works’ titles depict the artist’s state at the time of creation and his daily activities. At times, they reference specific political or historical events, contemporary happenings during the creation period, or music.