It all started with the canoe. Jorge Lizarazo, founder and creative director of Hechizoo, acquired the humble wooden vessel in the course of working with indigenous communities in his native Colombia. Once used to transport coca leaves on the Putumayo River, it is now an ocean away, covered in thousands of glass beads and hovering over New York’s Cristina Grajales Gallery as the centerpiece of 'Voyages/Explorations', a solo exhibition of work by Hechizoo, on view until the end of January 2014.
'We took the canoe as an element through which we wanted to give these people back their dignity,' says Lizarazo, dressed in a chunky Hemingway-style fisherman’s sweater that hints at his passion for weaving and textures. 'The family of 12 that made this canoe was displaced by violence from the region.' After applying each bead by hand to create intricate geometric patterns on the canoe, they held a going-away party for it.
'The canoe became not just an experiment and a voyage of materials but also a very profound, emotional search as to what did it mean,' says Cristina Grajales, who met Lizarazo a decade ago when he walked into her gallery seeking representation and bearing enchanting textiles (in Spanish, Hechizoo sounds like the word for 'enchantment' or 'bewitching'). Grajales continues, 'This is a very important moment for Hechizoo. Lizarazo and his atelier are taking more risks, learning more about materials, mixing materials in unexpected ways and breaking the boundaries of what’s possible.'
The recent creative surge is apparent in the handmade rugs, tapestries and sculptural objects that transform the gallery into an exuberant Amazon landscape. It's inhabited by tree-like installations in industrial rubber; a wall of engraved-metal leaves; illuminated natural-fibre columns; and a knitted-metal enclosure that hints at Lizarazo’s architectural training (after graduating from University of the Andes in Bogotá, he practiced in the offices of Santiago Calatrava and Massimiliano Fuksas).
He points out reeds from the Amazon embedded into an undulating copper and bronze panel lined in crystal rods before slowly circling the work - his most recent - which arrived via FedEx hours before the exhibition's opening reception. Although it appears to float from the ceiling, it is one of the heaviest pieces he has ever created. 'Here I wanted to make a rug that goes up, becomes a tapestry and then becomes an architectural space, so that a person can walk through it and become part of the piece,' says Lizarazo. 'The show goes from one journey to another.'
View of the wooden 'Inga' canoe from undeneath, hand-covered in glass beads (left) and installation view of a coloured metal stool, with a panel made of copper, crystal and yare.
'El Dorado's Autumn', 2013, consisting of copper and gold- and silver-plated leaves
A panel made of aluminum, blue copper and metallic thread (left) and 'Werregues: Woun, Wouna and Chanco' metal stools (right), 2013.
Installation view of 'El Dorado's Autumn' and a Hechizoo panel made of copper, crystal and yare.
'Tree Surgeon', 2013
A weaver working on 'Tree Surgeon', crafted from rubber and black copper
'Cacho' horn, 2013.
Installation view of Hechizoo's 'Jade' fabric (left), and paired with the 'Neymar Area' rug (right), 2013.
Detail of 'Moreira Rug', 2013.
ADDRESS
Cristina Grajales Gallery
10 Greene Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10013
-
A revamped Edinburgh apartment combines Californian-style modernism with modern craftArcher + Braun have transformed an apartment in a historic house with finely tuned contemporary additions and sympathetic attention to detail
-
Formafantasma’s biodiversity-boosting installation in a Perrier Jouët vineyard is cross-pollination at its bestFormafantasma and Perrier Jouët unveil the first project in their ‘Cohabitare’ initiative, ‘not only a work of art but also a contribution to the ecosystem’
-
Gingerbread City: architects sculpt London out of the season's favourite treatUntil December 29 in Chelsea, see London brought to life in a seasonal-appropriate medium by leading architects and designers
-
Inside Luna Luna: the amusement park designed by artists lands in New York‘Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy’ – featuring rides by Basquiat, Lichtenstein, Hockney, Haring, and Dalí – has opened at The Shed
-
Meet Kenia Almaraz Murillo, the artist rethinking weavingKenia Almaraz Murillo draws on the new and the traditional in her exhibition 'Andean Cosmovision' at London's Waddington Custot
-
Henni Alftan’s paintings frame everyday moments in cinematic renditionsConcurrent exhibitions in New York and Shanghai celebrate the mesmerising mystery in Henni Alftan’s paintings
-
Brutalism in film: the beautiful house that forms the backdrop to The Room Next DoorThe Room Next Door's production designer discusses mood-boarding and scene-setting for a moving film about friendship, fragility and the final curtain
-
'There’s an anxiety under all of it': Violet Dennison in New YorkViolet Dennison debuts abstract paintings with new show 'Damaged Self' at Tara Downs Gallery
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
-
Mark Armijo McKnight’s bodily landscapes capture the tactile serenity of the American WestThe artist’s new exhibition at the Whitney Museum, which is organised by the museum curator Drew Sawyer, offers a succinct window into his contemplative suggestion of queering a landscape
-
Dark, glamorous and hedonistic: a photography book captures New York in the 1990sNew York: High Life, Low Life, by Dafydd Jones, goes behind the scenes of New York society
