Recursos humanos: Se hace querer
Artist name
Artist year born
1969
Artwork make date
1996
Artwork title translation
Human Resources: It makes one love it
Artwork material
photographic print
Artwork dimensions
height: 15cm
width: 10cm
width: 10cm
Artwork type (categories)
Photographic Installation
Accession method
Donated by Mónica Bengoa 1997
Accession number
17-1997
Label text
Mónica Bengoa has described the interconnections explored through her works as those that are created by relationships between intimacy, distance, and classification. These three threads are evident in this arrangement of seventeen photographs. Intimacy makes itself clear in the proximity at which each photograph has been captured, so close that the photographic surface itself seems embodied. This is a privileged view typical of Bengoa's works from the 90s, a period in which she also documented folds and scars (often those found in the skin of her own body).
The title printed on each photograph switches this view to one that is distant: each freckle is positioned to correspond to the point at which, if the skin were a map, the city named would be found. When exhibited, the images are placed so as to collectively suggest a map of Latin America. Grouped, the photographs are also a carefully collected taxonomy of imperfections, marks on the skin that, like cartographic sites, draw you close. Aside from the formal relationships it puts into play, this work gives pause to consider how human knowledge and understanding are created by alternately proximate and distant views upon people and places: the amorous proximity of an intimately known body or land, and the cold view of scientific classification and modern mapmaking.
Isobel Whitelegg
The title printed on each photograph switches this view to one that is distant: each freckle is positioned to correspond to the point at which, if the skin were a map, the city named would be found. When exhibited, the images are placed so as to collectively suggest a map of Latin America. Grouped, the photographs are also a carefully collected taxonomy of imperfections, marks on the skin that, like cartographic sites, draw you close. Aside from the formal relationships it puts into play, this work gives pause to consider how human knowledge and understanding are created by alternately proximate and distant views upon people and places: the amorous proximity of an intimately known body or land, and the cold view of scientific classification and modern mapmaking.
Isobel Whitelegg
Last updated date
2008