Autoconstrucción
Abraham Cruzvillegas
Abraham Cruzvillegas discusses his personal and artistic relationship to the concept of autoconstrucción from his childhood home in Mexico City. “Autoconstucción is about self-constructing or constructing your own house,” the artist explains, adding, “I like the term because it leads me to think about the construction of identity.”
Cruzvillegas, who is shown assembling his large-scale installation The Autoconstrucción Suites at the Walker Art Center, is not illustrating autoconstrucción houses through his work, but instead is activating the method’s dynamic improvisation through the use of found materials.
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About the artists
Abraham Cruzvillegas assembles sculptures and installations from found objects and disparate materials. Expanding on the intellectual investigation of his own paradoxical aesthetic concepts of autoconstrucción and autodestrucción, he likens his works to self-portraits of contradictory elements and explores the effects of improvisation, transformation, and decay on his materials and work. In his experiments with video, performance, personal and family archives, and academic research, he reveals the deep connection between his identity—born of the realities of his family’s life in Mexico—and his artistic practice.
