In "Boca y Hueso" Cristina Mejías addresses stories in what distinguishes them from history. Her work challenges the strict, traditional methods used to construct a historical narrative through a linear structure. She departs from the general idea of knowledge in its usual practices and devices, to draw nearer to a more primal and authentic way of transmitting crucial information and learning. A more engaging way, and also physically more demanding… The one that cuts across bodies, requiring listing and a better capacity of our minds and memory — the one, indeed, that is found in the oral tradition. Along this pathway of the learning process, it becomes noticeable the underlying importance of intersubjectivity for knowledge itself. The artist focuses her investigation around the figure of the luthier, to give expression to one of our oldest motivations — learning a craft, a téchnē. Settled on familiar narratives (as in the case of this project, in which she spent time learning from her brother the luthier's skill), Cristina Mejías' work is centred on the experience of shared-processes. Merging this handcraft practice with the viewpoint of artistic experimentation, she establishes another link in the transmission process and body embedment.

 

 

Views of exhibition 'Boca y Hueso', at The Goma Gallery (Madrid, Spain), 2019 © Roberto Ruiz

Project done thanks to the help and teaching of Flamenco guitar maker Javier Mejías

 

Pentagrama, 2019. Fir, rosewood from India, cedar wood, cypress and ebony, bone, brass, varnish and guitar string. 155 x 210 cm

 

General view of the exhibition

 

Pentagrama (detail), 2019. Fir, rosewood from India, cedar wood, cypress and ebony, bone, brass, varnish and guitar string. 155 x 210 cm

 

Untitled. Ceramic. 15 x 60 x 15 cm

 

Hueco de boca y hueso (left), 2019. Fir, rosewood, dyed wood and ceramic. 155 x 55 cm 

 

Tapa armónica: cedro, arce y ébano, 2019. Cedar wood, ebony and maple, bone and shellac. 54 x 87 cm 

 

Hacedores, 2019. Mixed wood, bone and plaster. 160.5 x 60 x 0.2 cm / 174 x 60 x 0.2 cm

 

Hacedores (detail), 2019. Mixed wood, bone and plaster. 160.5 x 60 x 0.2 cm / 174 x 60 x 0.2 cm

 

General view of the exhibition

 

Afinar un cuerpo, 2019. Sapele wood and methacrylate. Video projection and sound 16’ 55’’. 110 x 50 x 21 cm

 

In the beginning, it was sound and rhythm. Oral poetry is rooted in melody and trope. Strabo tells us that in ancient times singing and saying were the same thing. This project focuses on artisan guitar-making, because the flamenco guitar, unlike the rest of the standardised school of plucked string instruments, came about as an accompaniment for troubadours in taverns and markets and today guitar-making is still a form of learning that in many cases is passed down orally from master to master. The voice gives shape to the wood. Cristina Mejías, 2019