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Although very well established in Europe, Chilean-born, Berlin-based Vásquez de la Horra is still being discovered by collectors on this side of the Atlantic, but her base here is growing: Four American visitors to this show's opening who has not heard of the artist purchased works on the spot. In the very first days of the exhibition, whose title translates to "Between Heaven and Earth," nearly half of the 91 wax-dipped graphite drawings, priced between $2,000 and $12,000, were sold. The drawings feature texts, magical underworld demons, and reptilian femail nudes in quasispiritual, political, and intensely personal narratives that over the years have formed a kind of intricate, fragmented folklore. The gallery has previously sold to many European collections, including Centre Pompidou, in Paris, which had acquired no fewer than 30 drawings from the gallery. (The Guerlain Foundation has since donated an additional large group, bringing the museum's total to nearly 100.) Immediately after the artist's participation in the Sao Paulo Bienal, still more museums came forward to purchase small groups of drawings.
Download PDF (1 MB)A Chilean artist who grew up under the oppressive Pinochet regime, Sandra Vásquez de la Horra studied graphic design and typography in her homeland before moving to Germany in 1995. Arriving in Düsseldorf at age 28, she studied at the prestigious Kunstakademie, developing a psychologically charged style of figurative drawings done on modestly sized pieces of paper that are then dipped in beeswax and pinned to the wall in poetic, nonnarrative arrangements. For her second solo show in New York, the artist presents nearly 100 of these raw graphite works, which boldly examine sex, death, politics and religion.
The largest grouping best expresses the exhibition’s title (which translates to “between heaven and earth”). Seven drawings into a chain of 41 images, we see the upper torso of a squatting female depicted as a transparent network of blood vessels, while her lower body is made of bricks. Near the center of the arrangement, another image shows a smoking man reclining next to the figure of Death; they float above a hand-lettered Spanish text that translates as “good company.” Nearby, a diptych captures reptilian people engaged in an orgy, while in the final piece, a dancing woman reveals an inner self of branches and leaves. With centaurs, mermaids, saints and demons taking part, the whole exhibition resembles a huge game of exquisite corpse, with each element providing a point of entry to an imaginary realm.
– Paul Laster