The Horse, the Woman, the Boy and the Stones: Equine Materialism, Feminist Anti-Speciesism, and Mineral Post-Humanism in Claudia Fontes? Work The Problem

FLEISNER, PAULA

Terremoto.mx, Arte contemporáneo en las Américas, Issue 12: Independencias

Motto Books

Lugar: Ginebra; Año: 2018; p. 1 - 15

(EL ARTICULO FUE PUBLICADO ON LINE EN Terremoto.mx A CARGO DE TEMBLORES PUBLICACIONES SA DE CV, Y EN PAPEL POR MOTTO BOOKS, GINEBRA, SUIZA. LA ARTISTA CLAUDIA FONTES LO REPUBLICÓ EN SU PÁGINA WEB OFICIAL) The installation selected for the Argentinian pavilion at the 2017 57th Venice Biennale was Claudia Fontes?s The Horse Problem. This sculptural work was specifically designed to occupy the Sale d?Armi, a room formerly used to cast bullets and cannons, store guns, and build ships, and that Argentina has rented for the Biennale since 2012. The agitated scene, like a photogram immobilizing movement in the middle of an explosion or some sort of stampede, is formed of white material that has been shaped into an unreasonably large prancing horse with glass eyes. A life-size woman stands facing it, covering her eyes with one hand, and touching the horse with her other, larger hand. A little further, a boy squats, one hand touching the ground, the other holding a stone. He has picked the stone up from the ground, where other stones of different sizes are scattered, and is looking at it through the hair that falls across his face. The rest of the piece is a series of rough, different-sized stones; most hang from the ceiling in front of the horse, projecting a disintegrated, presumably equine shadow on a white wall, while others are scattered on the ground. There is something pressing about the scene. We can perceive movement in the arrested image. Something that is not representation (for the relationship between model and copy is perverted), but a presentation, a critical apparition. A sculpted gesture that interrupts the logic of the symbolic reference between mediums and ends to expose the pure mediality (potential) of the resinous matter that shapes it.