Potosi

2022 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
100.01 x 64.14 x 3.49 cm

The mines at Potosí are both the site and subject of this work, also titled Potosí, by Antonio Vega Macotela. Historically, these mines bankrolled Spanish imperial coinage; the Spanish began excavating the site for silver in 1545 in what is now Bolivia. The mines themselves are situated at great altitude in the Andes, and are inhospitable to animal labor. As such, the Spanish coerced the local Indigenous Quechua people, who are more acclimated to high altitude living than most, into service to work the mines, in conjunction with imported slave laborers from Africa. Vega Macotela’s artwork is a reference to European portable altarpieces and reliquaries, yet instead of portraying Christian saints, Macotela has rendered effigies of mythical outlaw Quechuan miners who snuck into and appropriated the mine during holidays without sanction from the Spanish Crown. These effigies are rendered through an open source 3D modelling software called makehuman. As yet another representation of the site, the back of this neo-altarpiece is in turn a topographic map of the still-operational mine. As a complement to the 3D modelling software, the artist collaborated with a group of anonymous Spanish hackers working on the fringes of crypto currencies to translate the following poem by Andean poet Gauman Poma into code. Then, using digital steganography, the artist embedded the coded poem into the imagery of the work. These info points can be decoded, and as such, present a new form of artwork-as-storage. As reflection on the water, you are illusion As reflection of the lymph, you are appearance, When I think of your smiling eyes, I am in awe When I think of your playful eyes, I fall ill [Unuy rirpu llullam kanki Yakuy rirpu pallqum kanki Chay asiq nawily]kita yuyarispa ulinipuni Chay pukllay nawily/kita yuyarispa unquyman chayani] This work is joined by a series of neo-altarpieces dedicated to other historic mining sites across the globe in which indentured local communities toil with little protection. Tying the past to the present, many of these sites host the minerals necessary to run digital society, and as such, link together a non-linear history of capitalist exploitation.

Antonio Vega Macotela’s multidisciplinary practice is centered around site-specificity, and often engages marginalized communities such as prison inmates, miners, Indigenous communities, and hackers. Examining different forms of currency such as precious metals, fiat, and crypto, Vega Macotela’s work explores notions of labor, value, and exchange. His projects frame these currencies as systems through which social relations are established and negotiated. The artist’s work also investigates the effects that the extraction of these resources have on the environment.

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