The Carrillo Gil Art Museum exhibits the work of María Ezcurra over two decades

Identity, sexual violence, migration and concern for nature are themes that María Ezcurra, a Mexican-Canadian artist, born in Argentina, has developed in her work, as can be seen in Lines of flightthe first retrospective exhibition of his two decades of work open at the Carrillo Gil Art Museum (MACG). The exhibition brings together key pieces of his production, which is characterized by the use of textiles, clothing and recycled materials as an aesthetic and political tool. The works include installation, sculpture, drawing and photography.

Hailing from Buenos Aires, Ezcurra came to Mexico as a child with her family. He studied at the National School of Plastic Arts (now, Faculty of Arts and Design) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He completed master’s degrees in London and San Francisco, before moving to Montreal, Canada, to study for a doctorate in art education at Concordia University.

Nuria Carton de Grammont, co-curator of the exhibition with Fernanda Ramos Mena, referred to Ezcurra as “prodigal daughter of the Mexican neoconceptualisms of the 90s.” He emphasized the need to “not lose sight of the hemispheric historical, but also geographical, vision of María’s work.”

The title of the exhibition has to do with “the idea of ​​flight as these lines that tense, overflow and often break.” This, in view of the fact that “then gender stereotypes, identity, being, are considered as something fixed, static and essentialist.” Thus, the escape is seen “as a rupture of structures, positionings and preconceived ideas,” said Ramos Mena.

Lines of flight It is divided into three thematic cores, although the exhibition lacks a “linearity”, since the artist’s themes “reappear” on many occasions, but in a different way, according to the geographical spaces she has inhabited, Ramos Mena said.

Pantyhose and shoes/femicides and migration

In the first section, Materialities of the body, the protagonist is pantyhose. Ezcurra’s use of nylon stocking dates back to 2003 and its installation Not one morefor which a set of these garments hangs from a metal ring. The toe of each stocking contains a woman’s shoe. “The piece was born out of a general concern in Mexico, at the end of the 90s and beginning of the 21st century, when the problem of femicides in Ciudad Juárez began to become increasingly evident. A situation that they tried to make invisible because they were women, some of them migrants, dark-skinned, of indigenous roots, poor, who often worked in maquilas,” the artist indicated in a tour for the press.

A photograph published in The Dayin which a desert landscape was seen with a solitary female shoe, which “offered information about the person who was no longer there,” was one of the starting points of the project. For the assembly of Not one more The MACG launched a call for shoe donations. 69 were used.

Upon arriving in Montreal, Ezcurra felt “less vulnerable as a woman,” yet “exposed in another way as an immigrant.” It was when Strain, walkable installation made with red pantyhose and stones that, physically and conceptually, connects the body with the place it occupies.

The second core, Cartologies of Displacement, is related to Ezcurra’s migration history. The installation has been hung from the skylight of the premises Passing/Passant/Pasando which gives the impression of being a flock of birds flying over the museum space, when in reality they are cut-out shoes that refer to the resilience and vulnerability of migrant populations.

The installation connects to the piece Neotropical migrantscomposed of 154 drawings made on cardboard of different sizes, of birds specifically from Quebec, displayed on the museum wall. “When I arrived in Montreal, what surprised me most was the silence. I came from Mexico City. Dawn without the sound of birds is difficult, like something is missing, because the cold of winter there lasts five to six months. Half of the birds migrate south,” he said.

It took Ezcurra six years to make Neotropical migrants. Working together with scientists, he created a list of birds that he later drew life-size. He used recycled cardboard because they are “materials that travel.” Each bird has a small dot indicating its conservation status, from stable to endangered. In the context of the exhibition, a children’s guide on the subject will be released.

In the third section “the ‘ought to be’ of femininity is ironized to overwhelm it.” In large format photographs of Perfect Housewife’s Wardrobethe figure of the artist merges with the domestic environment, be it curtains, tablecloths and sheets, in order to demonstrate dynamics of care and service, historically assigned to women. In it performance Waitress The lady’s dress is confused with the tablecloth of the table she is carrying.

For a piece related to “quinceañeras,” Ezcurra searched second-hand flea markets for dresses that had been used in that type of celebration, which hint at a body that was there. While in Canada these dresses “speak to us about people who come from Latin American countries, in Mexico they represent the transition of the girl into a woman. In this context the artist embroiders names on the dresses that refer to these particularities, for example, Soledad, Socorro and Paz, as a duty to be feminine,” says Ramos Mena.

Currently, Ezcurra is carrying out a project related to the monarch butterfly.

María Ezcurra: Lines of flight It will be open to the public until August 9 at the Carrilo Gil Art Museum (1608 Revolución Avenue, San Ángel neighborhood).