Cristina Velásquez
Cristina Velásquez
VITERBO
7 x 8.5"
softcover
48 pages
25 plates
Kris Graves Projects
2019
About the Book:
Cristina Velásquez is a visual artist working mainly with photography and paper weavings. Her work investigates representation and translation in the context of transcultural relationships —both as mechanisms for oppression and silencing, as well as powerful tools for connection and resistance. She is interested in the way one culture translates another, and how inevitably, a dominant culture sanitizes and reduces the other in a subtle, and not so subtle, continuity of colonialism. Similarly, Velásquez explores the ways social constructions of value, such as, race, class, and labor distribution, are shaped by images and language, echoing a larger system of power and exchange that goes beyond borders and nationality. Velásquez asks how photography and weaving might be called upon to further the understanding of social politics, history, and narrative, particularly in relation to Latin American studies.
Book review by Vann Powell |
Cristina Velasquez’s Viterbo, published by KGP (Kris Graves Projects) in 2019 takes its name from the subject of the book, the artist’s familial hometown in Colombia. Viterbo is part of a larger collection entitled LOST released by KGP that focuses on an artist and a specific location. Each book offers a unique look at an artist's connection to a location, town, or city. Velasquez’s strong connection and emotional ties to her family's home can be felt on the pages as she plays with the rich colors and textures of Viterbo, successfully weaving a compelling visual narrative.
Upon first opening Viterbo the artist’s palette immediately jumps off the page. The colors captured in Viterbo are bold and inviting, speaking to something essential about how Velasquez sees Viterbo. Throughout the book Velasquez offers the reader scenes from home that feel intimate and known yet still out of reach, delicately balancing the universal with the personal.
Velasquez’s adjacent sculpture practice working with flat paper weaving has helped in shaping her sense for textures and layering. The textural images in the book help bring the town to life and serve to ground the book in its subject, a sense of the place. Looking at the age of the town and how it feels and looks lived-in helps to illustrate this unique feeling of the place.
When people appear in Viterbo their faces are often hidden or obfuscated. This theme is repeated throughout the work. Scenes like a man whose head has disappeared into the shadow of a car while replacing a tire, or a child's face partially covered up by raw meat speak to the intention the artist took in not revealing her subjects. With Velasquez’s repeating motif of obfuscating, layering, and covering up she shows us Viterbo but holds something back for herself.
Images often say more about the artist who made them than the apparent subject. The images in Viterbo seem to capture as much about the place as they do the artist. The beauty in how Velasquez sees her family hometown is echoed in her approach and intentionality towards the place.
