“Sol y dar y dad”: Cecilia Vicu?a: Spin Spin Triangulene, a Chilean at the Guggenheim

Last few weeks to see Cecilia Vicu?a at the Guggenheim. Until September 5th.

“Sol y dar y dad”: Cecilia Vicu?a: Spin Spin Triangulene, a Chilean at the Guggenheim

*By Gustavo Gac-Artigas, translated by Priscilla Gac-Artigas

Cecilia Vicu?a’s solo exhibition at the Guggenheim is a journey through the spiral of time, a voyage through history, another history, the personal, as well as the history of the Americas.

She puzzles us, entangles us with quipus descending from the sky, rising from the sea to get lost in the white clouds of the Guggenheim, of the imagination. A secret language, language sending clues from a seashell, a black potato, its starch soaked by the crystalline waters of the rivers born in the cordillera. Red strings of history descending through the Americas baffling the viewer, the witness; black strings weaved of nightmares, white strings wove of hope, a hemp-made “pirgua” half-hidden hanging from a quipu waiting to be filled up with memories.

A gigantic spider web, the language of our ancestors, the secret language of history, the language of the poet, the activist, the magician who plays with images and words, with the feelings of the audience witnessing their story, our story, my story.

And in all this, I was just at the first curve of the giant spiral that would submerge me in history, would throw me into the whirlwind of history.

A picaresque poet, she hid, facing a white wall, the reverse side of history —not hers, ours. And through the silhouette of four different characters with mirrors for faces, with no judgment, no guidance, she invites us to choose, simply choose, our role in life. Perhaps because in the history of Latin America, there were times when choosing was forbidden, or it could mean exposing yourself to pain.

As wombs are torn again in America, a timeless feminist Vicu?a challenges us with vaginas bleeding from the wounds of machismo in Latin America. Is it Latin America or the whole world?

Guggenheim’s spiral of life surrounded us, exhilarated us, invited us to visit heaven or hell, with no respite, our thoughts interrupted with Kandinsky’s works just to throw us back into the gigantic spider’s webs, the quipu of Cecilia Vicu?a’s story, with her soft vicu?a fur, with brushes emerging from the soft fur of a vicu?a, soaked in the waves of Concón, the red ocean waves smearing her brushes of red, of blue, of pain, of death and life, traversing time, escaping from the personal to be the story of others, of the silent witness who, not having chosen his part in history ascended the spiral of the museum bathed in memories carried away by blows of history, by waves of life, by the hand and the words of Cecilia Vicu?a and the history that, sacred quipu, secret language, irradiated her brushes and her words.

Upon reaching the domed skylight of the museum and looking at the last message of the painter, the sound of a siren ran down the spiral ramp, and it was not random nor fate. It was a message from the activist, and the echo of the sirens on the walls warned us: one cannot traverse history with impunity.

Cecilia Vicu?a: Spin Spin Triangulene at the Guggenheim until September 5, 2022.

*Gustavo Gac-Artigas is a Chilean poet and novelist who lives in New Jersey. He is a corresponding member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE).

Priscilla Gac-Artigas, PhD, is a Fulbright Scholar, a full member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, and a professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Monmouth University, NJ.