ALEJANDRA GLEZ
MY HOUSE IS MY BODY
Initially a virtual exhibit by featuring 14 limited edition prints and a video performance conceived and executed during the quarantine of 2020, the show has been expanded to include a unique edition of 8 dye sublimation prints on aluminum panels.
In collaboration with and essay by Dayneris Brito.
This new series has an immediate relevance as we all deal with our own current quarantine. In this selection of photographs by Alejandra, she tries to recreate and reproduce the many parts of the female body, that are affected due to the immobility we're facing these days. She aims to capture the body’s language as a reflection of lockup and imprisonment felt mostly by female bodies.
The original online exhibition ran for 40 days, the original meaning of the word quarantine.
Alejandra is a self-taught photographer and video artist whose work often uses her own body as a visual tool to communicate her ideas and force us to confront our own beliefs and our own discomfort with sitting with ourselves and perhaps the terror of our own introspection.
Her work deals with issues of gender politics, violence against women, body dysmorphia, and terror; the terror of silence, the terror of loneliness, the terror of being alive.
Title: I, me, myself
Technique: Performance - Video
Camera: Alexis Glez
Editing & Sound: Bosito
15.75" x 15.75"
15.75" x 15.75"
15.75" x 15.75"
15.75" x 15.75"
15.75" x 15.75"
15.75" x 15.75"
15.75" x 15.75"
15.75" x 13.75"
15.75" x 10.75"
15.75" x 12"
15.75" x 10.75"
15.75" x 11.5"
15.75" x 12.25"
15.75" x 9.75"
The Multiple Insights Of Alejandra Glez
By Dayneris Brito
The current circumstances we’re all struggling with nowadays, have brought into light new ways of seeing ourselves as subjects and individuals. Social distancing, loneliness, lockdown and solitude are just some of the issues to deal with in these latest days, since we’re not allowed to go outside our homes anymore, while our daily routine has been totally affected due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The worldwide situation that asks us to be enclosed, is certainly limiting human beings’ social activities. Suddenly, we find ourselves facing an unexpected free-time that in many ways is filled with inspiration and emotional stimulus. To contribute to this purpose, art institutions and exhibit spaces are turning to the online platform, in order to provide all a virtual refuge where art keeps going.
My house is my body consists as an ongoing exhibition of the Havana-based visual artist Alejandra Glez. It is composed by photographs and a video-art installation, aimed to recreate through Alejandra’s insights, the body language as a reflection of lockup and imprisonment felt mostly by female bodies. Taking into account that the current condition is affecting not just women’s physical health, but their mental health as well, the artist is encouraged to underline the many parts of the female body, that according her closer friends are meant to represent anxiety, sensation of lockdown, angst and fear. We’re referring to breasts, the feet, the hair, the mouth, the fingers, the hands and so on.
It seems Alejandra’s images have the intention of exploring what it is to be within our own body looking out; the moments of intimacy when you can actually exist as a woman in all your contradictions and complications, both physical and mental. How many times do we feel free from our body? Are we enclosed within our homes or within our minds? Which parts of our body make us feel trapped? These are some of the questionings that eventually show up while discovering her complex visions on such controversial issues. Likewise, this virtual show makes us aware of a shared visual experience, in which we feel comfortable –or uncomfortable- with our own bodies.
Such as, we wanted to define the results obtained by the artist’s insights as “practical exercises in time of isolation”, rather than finished complex art works, given that what really matters is the concept behind each shortlisted shot. However, the scheme prompts a reflection on, and awareness of, contemporary questions of how feminist trends and social identities are looking into themselves; while are constantly being reinvented.
Dayneris Brito
(Havana, 1996)
Art historian, art writer settled between Havana and Venice
Los múltiples cuestionamientos de Alejandra Glez
Las circunstancias actuales a las que nos enfrentamos, traen a la luz nuevas y más complejas maneras de evaluarnos como sujetos sociales e individuos. El distanciamiento social, la soledad y el enclaustramiento son solo algunas de las problemáticas más recientes con las que convivimos, mientras permanecemos inactivos y nuestra rutina diaria varía por completo como respuesta al esparcimiento de la COVID-19. La condición global que nos hace un llamado a permanecer en casa, ciertamente limita las actividades de socialización de los seres humanos. De repente, nos encontramos frente a un tiempo libre prolongado que en el mejor de los casos es rellenado con inspiración y estímulos emocionales. Ante tal contexto, las instituciones de arte y los espacios de exhibición se giran hacia la plataforma online, en función de brindar un refugio virtual donde el arte esté aun latente.
My house is my body constituye una exhibición virtual de la artista visual radicada en La Habana Alejandra Glez. Compuesta por un conjunto de fotografías y un video-arte, se proyecta en función de recrear mediante las miradas indagatorias de la artista, el lenguaje corporal femenino como reflexión directa de encierro, reclusión y aislamiento. A sabiendas de que las condiciones actuales son un detonante no solo para la salud física de las mujeres, sino para su salud mental, además, Alejandra se propone enfatizar las disímiles partes del cuerpo femenino que encarnan la ansiedad, la angustia y la depresión sentida por sus amigas mujeres más cercanas. En este sentido, nos referimos a los senos, el pelo, los dedos, las manos, los pies, etc…
Pareciese entonces que las imágenes de Alejandra guardan la intención de explorar lo que significa estar encerradas en un cuerpo y mirando hacia fuera. En definitivas, constituyen momentos de intimidad en los que nos encontramos como mujeres con todas nuestras contradicciones y complicaciones, tanto físicas como mentales. ¿Cuántas veces nos sentimos liberadas de nuestro propio cuerpo? ¿Estamos encerradas en nuestras casas o en nuestras mentes? ¿Cuál es la alarma corporal que nos trasmite sensación de encierro? Son estas algunas de las interrogantes que eventualmente emergen mientras ahondamos en temas tan controversiales. Por otro lado, la exhibición presentada nos hace partícipe de una experiencia igualmente compartida, en la que somos capaces de sentirnos conformes –o inconformes- con nuestra constitución física.
Es por ello que quisimos declarar las piezas incluidas como “ejercicios de experimentación en tiempos de distanciamiento”, en tanto no resultan obras de compleja hechura, sino que es su concepto el que nos conduce a la laceración y el desgarramiento. De cualquier manera la muestra -que se erige sin grandes pretensiones-, propone una reflexión muy personal sobre cómo varían y se reinventan las tendencias feministas y los cuestionamientos sobre la identidad de género, en momentos que pareciesen ser más propensos al ensimismamiento.
Dayneris Brito
(La Habana, 1996)
MY HOUSE IS MY BODY
A unique edition of (8)
Dye Sublimation Prints on Aluminum Panels
Edition of 1
$1,200.00 ea.
MY HOUSE IS MY BODY
Pigment Prints on Archival Paper
Edition of 10 + 2 AP
$375.00 ea.
