PEOPLE OF THE MUD by Luis Alberto Rodriguez

ベルリンを拠点に活動するアメリカ人アーティスト、ルイス・アルベルト・ロドリゲス(Luis Alberto Rodriguez)の作品集。古代から続く伝統と、現代的な生活が日常的に交差するアイルランド・ウェックスフォード州の様々なコミュニティとのコラボレーションを通じて制作された力強いシリーズ。元プロダンサーというバックグラウンドを持つ作者の作品は、土地を耕作し文化的な遺産を維持するのに費やされてきた何世紀にも及ぶ肉体労働の持つ暗喩的な重みに敬意を表している。文化が個人を形成し、また個人によって文化が創り上げられるのと同じように、畑仕事あるいはスポーツで傷を負った腕や手のイメージは、その肉体に刻み込まれた地図のような役割を果たしている。また、華麗な舞踏室から草原に連れ出されたアイルランド人女性のコンテンポラリーダンサーの魅力を強調したイメージは、時間と空間の断裂を表現している。作者はケルト族の伝統的な屋外スポーツ「ハーリング」の強烈な身体性にも深い感銘を受けている。草原で行われる最もスピーディーな競技とされるハーリングの映像をスローモーションで観た作者は、お互いを押し合い、押しのけ、掴み合い、抱きつき、地面に押し倒し、持ち上げるといったプ様々な動きを競技者が僅か数秒の間に行っているのに目をみはった。作者はこうした動きを再現し、競技者を文字通り積み重ねて肉体の彫刻を作り上げた。

People of the Mud is a powerful new series by Berlin-based US-Dominican artist Luis Alberto Rodriguez, made collaboratively amongst the communities of County Wexford in Ireland, where ancient tradition and modern life rub shoulders daily. With a background in professional dance, Rodriguez’s work pays tribute to the metaphorical weight of centuries of physical labour behind cultivating the landscape and maintaining cultural heritage. Images of scarred limbs and hands, weathered faces and choreographed bodies appear as a cartography of this labour, reflecting how culture both shapes and is shaped by individuals. Elsewhere, we see the exaggerated glamour of modern female Irish dancers taken out of the glitzy ballrooms and into the fields, creating a rupture across time and space. While in Wexford, Rodriguez was struck by the intense physicality of the sport of hurling. Considered to be the fastest sport on grass, while watching slow-motion footage of hurling Rodriguez saw that within seconds the players would go through pushing, shoving, grabbing, hugging, knocking each other down and then lifting one another up. Rodriguez worked with players to reform these gestures: creating sculptures out of bodies, directing and literally layering players upon one another. At the outset of his project, Rodriguez wanted to create a large family photograph, an idea that was quickly surpassed by other strands of enquiry. However, with a step backwards we can see People of the Mud as just that – a collective community portrait of all the different elements that construct modern, rural Irish identities. Just like any family portrait, it is at times dysfunctional and contradictory; it gathers all the ruptures and continuities between the past and present in modern Ireland, while being held in a landscape and moment in time. This moment is both still – posed and paused – and in perpetual motion, looking towards the future.

by Luis Alberto Rodriguez

REGULAR PRICE ¥7,480  (tax incl.)

hardcover in a slipcase
114 pages
230 x 275 mm
black and white
2020

published by LOOSE JOINTS