To Carry Oneself. Happy holiday!
In the works of Isabel Banal, people carry objects. These small nativity figures, modelled out of clay and painted white, carry or move things from one place to another. A basket, a pitcher, a chicken, a bundle of firewood, but also a suitcase, a backpack, books, a shopping trolley or a box. The artist’s rural origins resonate here but also her anthropological perspective on the most fundamental aspects of the human condition, the effort expended by mortals carrying the baggage of their existence. We find this same perspective in the photographic series Traginadores (Carriers), from 2016, where the artist places herself inside objects such as a basket, a plastic fruit box, a creel or a bucket, and tries, in an absurd effort, to carry herself, while the common, rural utensils incorporated in the series evoke the anonymous and ancestral work of so many women over time. Al cistell (In the Basket), from the MACBA Collection, is part of this series. As Banal explains: ‘It’s a very absurd image because I go inside the basket and try to carry myself, but I can’t lift it. Yet it’s true that we all carry ourselves, it’s a metaphor.’
