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Ojos, 1988

Eyes, 1988
Object, 2 fabric pieces: 187 x 104 cm and 184 x 84 cm; original pillow from Middle Atlas: 35 x 44 cm

In 1985, Teresa Lanceta read a monograph on popular Moroccan textiles and, fascinated by the images and the affinity with her textile work, decided to write to its author, Bert Flint, a Dutch collector and scholar long established in Marrakesh. ‘What you are looking for, here it is being lost’, he replied in what marked the beginning of a friendship that prompted Lanceta's travels to the Moroccan Atlas, where, over the course of four years, she encountered numerous communities and women weavers. The affinity between her previous work with what she found in this part of North Africa was astonishing: minimalist fabrics, without a focal centre or theme, and colourful abstractions understood as a pure exploration of the line in space. What Lanceta discovered was an ancestral knowledge with a productive purpose, as well as social and communal. As she explained in an interview in 2017: ‘Weaving has allowed me to understand a primordial and universal source that manifests its internal laws, crossing physical, temporal and cultural boundaries. I was not interested in the tapestries of palaces or in the lavish tapestries made by obedient hands under the dictates of others, but in the weavings from eminently textile cultures that unify making and usage, and develop a language as a testimony to culture and art.’

The work in the MACBA Collection presents all the characteristics of the first stage of her creative relationship with the textile tradition of the Middle Atlas, which Lanceta experienced during the second half of the eighties. Ojos, from 1988, incorporates an original cushion woven by the communities of this area of Morocco near the Sahara and two of Lanceta’s textiles. As in other works from this period, she combines anonymous creations and her own, thus forming a dialogue and a new compositional ensemble. Referring to her production during those years, Lanceta explains that she kept the technique, materials and format of the original textiles.

Ojos benefits from the dynamism and movement of the rhombus, a figure with a marked irregularity, exploring the idea of repetition and variation. ‘The rhombus has no horizons or verticals, but is made of diagonals that form unlimited grids. In its repetitive expansion, the rhomboid network does not reveal coordinates, has no centre or frame, but is a network of equal parts. Repetition is not an enemy, but a value that assumes variations and transgressions. The rhombus is a horizon.’ (Teresa LANCETA: Adiós al rombo [Farewell to the Rhombus]. Bilbao: Azkuna Zentroa Alhóndiga Bilbao, 2017)


Technical details

Original title:
Ojos
Registration number:
5768
Artist:
Lanceta, Teresa
Date created:
1988
Date acquired:
2019
Status:
On loan
Fonds:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
Object type:
Object
Media:
Fabric. Wool and cotton
Dimensions:
2 fabric pieces: 187 x 104 cm and 184 x 84 cm; original pillow from Middle Atlas: 35 x 44 cm
Credits:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
Copyright:
© Teresa Lanceta, VEGAP, Barcelona
It has accessibility resources:
No

The MACBA Collection features Catalan, Spanish and international art and, although it includes works from the 1920s onwards, its primary focus is on the period between the 1960s and the present.

For more information on the work or the artist, please consult MACBA's Library. To request a loan of the work, please write to colleccio [at] macba.cat.

If you need a high resolution image of the work, you must submit an image loan request.