ektor garcia, empezar, 2018 - 2023
Booth F13
Through his multidisciplinary practice, ektor garcia challenges the hierarchies of gendered and racialized labor, combining a queer punk sensibility with the handcraft traditions of Mexico, his ancestral homeland. Reconfiguring and undoing to start anew, to find new points of connection and possibility, are integral tenets of garcia’s practice. Undoing the knot is as important as reknotting. Engaging vernacular and craft practices historically cast in diminutive or marginalized roles, the artist confers renewed value through intimate, ritual processes. The resulting objects are hybrid in nature—both malleable and solid, dense and porous, sharp and supple—evoking the body and its labor.
Deeply varied textures, techniques, and materials coexist in garcia’s works, from lace, weaving, and crochet to stoneware and metalwork. In a series of evocative sculptures, the artist incorporates ceramic and glass chain links shaped to mimic bone, together with copper hanging wreaths inspired by Victorian hair art and its role in memorial and mourning. Other sculptures hover in time, snapshots of a moment, floating somewhere between ancient craft techniques, family heirlooms, and future artifacts.
Deeply varied textures, techniques, and materials coexist in garcia’s works, from lace, weaving, and crochet to stoneware and metalwork. In a series of evocative sculptures, the artist incorporates ceramic and glass chain links shaped to mimic bone, together with copper hanging wreaths inspired by Victorian hair art and its role in memorial and mourning. Other sculptures hover in time, snapshots of a moment, floating somewhere between ancient craft techniques, family heirlooms, and future artifacts.
