Gente Serpiente (Serpent People)

2019 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
71 x 35 x 24 cm

Gente Serpiente (Serpent People) is a piece made with the wheels of bikes, twisted, intertwined and painted like skins of tropical poisonous snakes. This sculpture, as well as other pieces by Mazenett and Quiroga, seeks to reveal and re-inscribe everyday and ordinary objects within a mythological tradition, to reconnect them with an origin in order to recognize their hidden life and meaning. These objects represent the life cycle and the animal, as well as cultural and geological time: long ago they were marine organisms and through the action of sand, sediment and mud, in oil, then in wheels they are transformed. Painted like snakes they recall the symbol of the eternal return, they refer to transformations that go beyond the obsolete distinction between natural and cultural objects.

Mazenett Quiroga have been working collaboratively in Bogotá, Colombia for the past nine years. In their projects, they explore the interrelationship between organisms and the misnamed “resources” of our environment and how these relationships are appropriated and distributed by means of culture. They reflect on temporality, origin, and symbolism of fundamental elements of the world economy, working with materials of fossil origin, such as tar, pitch, coal and a diversity of minerals. Omnipresent in our daily lives, minerals connect humans with remote geological times. The artists’ practice is informed by a close dialogue between mythology from Amazonian peoples and western science such as geology, astronomy, and economy, trying to reconnect ordinary and everyday elements with ancient knowledge and mythical time.

Colors: