Comunicado con tierra

Comunicando con tierra began in 1971 with Marta Minujín's visit to the historic Inca site of Machu Picchu in Peru. With the permission of the site's adminis- tration, she dug up thirty kilos of earth from various locations at Machu Picchu, which exuded a powerful energy for her, and had it taken to Buenos Aires for her exhibition at the Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAYC). In the gallery, she combined five kilos of the earth with local soil and moistened it to create the nest of an ovenbird-a small songbird native to the Americas, closely related to warblers and sparrows-which resembles a clay oven. The remaining twen- ty-five kilos of Machu Picchu earth were displayed in plastic bags, at the end of the exhibition, Minujín mailed the bags of soil to twenty-five artists throughout the Americas, asking them to mix in earth from their own locations and return the mixture to her. Again at Machu Picchu in 1976, Minujin organized a "ceremony of restitution," replacing the soil she had removed with the mixed earth the artists had sent her from across the continent. Through this simple gesture, the powerful physicality of soil makes a symbolic connection across time and space. Documentation of the work includes a hand-drawn map indicating where the Machu Picchu earth traveled and videos showing the artist at work with the mud. While creating the overbird nest, she wears masks that evoke the historical past of the continent and the prevalence of pre-Hispanic influences. The videos are shown on a monitor located inside a monumental version of the nest. Minujin's work suggests the importance of communication, cross-reference, and exchange in the creation of continental avant-garde art networks and movements.
Text written by Curators Rocío Aranda-Alvarado and Pablo León de la Barra for the exhibition catalog.