Maricruz Arribas’ 10 Texturas and the Art of Interconnection

Centered around a signature World Bank art collection piece, 10 Texturas by Peruvian artist Maricruz Arribas, this story considers linkages between the organization’s mission and the artwork’s symbolism

A signature piece in the World Bank’s collection, 10 Texturas is composed of suspended rods from which hang layered materials: steel scrap, animal skin, yarn and rope whose textures range from rough to smooth and from natural to industrial.

At first glance, the installation captivates with its tactile richness, variations of density, overlapping volumes and rhythmic lines. Yet beneath the impressive material presence lies a metaphor...

...distinct strands, each with their own integrity, are reimagined to form an art piece that is both resilient and beautiful. 10 Texturas does not flatten its strands into sameness but highlights their individuality, allowing them to coexist in harmony.

The author of 10 Texturas, Peruvian artist Maricruz Arribas, described it as a love poem about her country.  Her use of found objects, composed into a large installation, imbues fragments with monument-like presence as homage to beauty and gesture of remembrance.

The result is an abstraction that feels simultaneously organic and deliberate, echoing the duality of development.

Twenty-eight years since its creation, 10 Texturas remains both timeless and timely reminding us that complexity is not to be feared but embraced.

In cherishing this work, we affirm that the World Bank’s story, like Arribas’ threads, is not the story of one strand alone but of many—ten, a hundred, or thousands—all part of a collective artwork of a world still in the making.

Maricruz Arribas was born in 1954 in Peru and is a graduate of the Pontifical Catholic University in Lima. Inspired by the passage of time and materiality of the intangible, her practice embraces collecting and reuse of everyday objects as creative acts of revealing beauty.