Primero Estaba el Mar

2012 - Installation (Installation)

Felipe Arturo

year born: 1979
gender: male
nationality: Colombian
home town: Bogota, Colombia

Primero estaba el mar ( First Was the Sea , 2012) is a system of equivalences between syllables and silhouettes of waveforms cast in cement. Each waveform represents a syllable of the sentence “Primero estaba el mar.” This sentence is the first verse of the Kogui poem of creation. For the Koguis, an indigenous community from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta on the Colombian Caribbean coast, water was the absolute presence before the creation of the universe. The Colombian writer Tomás González used this phrase as the title of his first novel, in which he narrates the story of a couple in Medellín who, following the anarchic and hippie trends of the 1970s, abandon civilization and move to a solitary beach. Instead of leaving modernity behind, however, the couple becomes a colonizing force, transforming the natural environment of the beach into a rationalized territory. Under the logic proposed by Primero estaba el mar, the variation of the order of the waveforms represents different possibilities for this sentence. The work produces eight different phrases that assimilate the idea of repetition and change; the sentence has eight syllables, and each syllable-waveform is repeated eight times in order to reconstruct the title eight different times, resulting in a total of sixty-four pieces.


Felipe Arturo considers elements from urbanism, architecture, and art in relation to politics, history, geography, and economy. His works and projects often manifest as sculptures, installations, or videos, departing from concepts such as structure, sequence, and matter. They are deeply influenced by vernacular architecture and construction techniques, and reflect processes of assimilation and resistance to colonial and postcolonial processes. He frequently combines the language and materials of Modernism (e.g., concrete) with the informal methods of autoconstrucción (self-construction).


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » Andes Region, » Colombian  
» see more

Metaphors of the presence or conversations at the speed of light
© » KADIST

Nicolás Paris

2012

Nicolas Paris studied architecture and worked as an elementary school teacher before he decided to become an artist...

Roca Carbón (Charcoal Rock)
© » KADIST

Mateo Lopez

2012

With Roca Carbón (Charcoal Rock, 2012) and Roca Grafito ( Graphite Rock , 2012), López plays with our relationship to inert and unremarkable objects such as rocks...

Stone Deaf (Drawing)
© » KADIST

Milena Bonilla

2009

Milena Bonilla’s discursive practice explores connections among economics, territory, and politics through everyday interventions...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Trópico entrópico
© » KADIST

Felipe Arturo

2012

Defined as entropy, the second law of thermodynamics proposes that energy is more easily dispersed than it is concentrated...

Metaphors of the presence or conversations at the speed of light
© » KADIST

Nicolás Paris

2012

Nicolas Paris studied architecture and worked as an elementary school teacher before he decided to become an artist...

Roca Carbón (Charcoal Rock)
© » KADIST

Mateo Lopez

2012

With Roca Carbón (Charcoal Rock, 2012) and Roca Grafito ( Graphite Rock , 2012), López plays with our relationship to inert and unremarkable objects such as rocks...

Round and Round and Consumed by Fire
© » KADIST

Claudia Joskowicz

2009

The primary interest in the trilogy is Joskowicz’s use of cinematic space, with long tracking shots that portray resistance to habitual viewing experiences of film and television...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Studies of Chinese New Villages II
© » KADIST

Gan Chin Lee

2019

In Studies of Chinese New Villages II Gan Chin Lee’s realism appears in the format of a fieldwork notebook; capturing present-day surroundings while unpacking their historical memory...

Kastura
© » KADIST

Yuki Kimura

2012

Kastura (2012) is an installation consisting of 24 black-and-white photographs of the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto bequeathed by Kimura’s grandfather; free-standing structures on which they are hung; and ornamental plants...

The Drawings of Catriona Secker
© » HIGH FRUCTOSE

In her graphite drawings and paintings, Catriona Secker finds inspiration in biology textbooks and vintage natural history tomes...

Orang Phebien: Telling the story of the Baweanese
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Orang Phebien: Telling the story of the Baweanese | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Illustration: Hadi Osni August 5, 2020 Lesser known narratives involving migration in Singapore are in the spotlight with The Arts House’ latest edition of LumiNation ...

Other works by: » Felipe Arturo  
» see more

Trópico entrópico
© » KADIST

Felipe Arturo

2012

Defined as entropy, the second law of thermodynamics proposes that energy is more easily dispersed than it is concentrated...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Sign series, #1, #2, #3
© » KADIST

Bjorn Copeland

2009

Sign #1 , Sign #2 , Sign #3 were included in “Found Object Assembly”, Copeland’s 2009 solo show at Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco...

Rianto’s “Medium”: Of Journeys, Transformations & Corporeality
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Rianto's "Medium": Of Journeys, Transformations & Corporeality | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Bernie Ng November 1, 2018 By Nirmala Seshadri (990 words, four-minute read) Total darkness...

Songs on Conceptual Art
© » KADIST

Kadist Art Foundation and THE THING Quarterly present the San Francisco album release for Songs on Conceptual Art , a project organized by artists Crystal Baxley and Stefan Ransom...