Aixa Portero’s work is polysemic, meaning it acquires multiple meanings depending on the space that receives it. In this specific case, her presence at the Querétaro Museum of Contemporary Art invites varied interpretations, especially when considering the artist’s interest in establishing connections, meaningful relationships with Mexico, and her day-to-day visual poetics.
Formally, Aixa found a starting point in feather art, in this case by intervening in books that, in one way or another, refer to the country — stretching from Tijuana to Mérida. These books, in turn, prompt reflections on possible routes of meaning connected to other works of this nature, such as the 18th-century “Virgin Dolorosa” at the Museo Universitario Casa de los Muñecos in Puebla, haute couture dresses, or the traditional attire of the concheros from the San Francisquito neighborhood in Querétaro, among other examples.
A specialist in the Culture of Peace — a theme that has accompanied her academically as a full-time professor at the University of Granada, Spain — she presents this installation in which the art objects act as brooches, 21st-century mestizaje, and metaphors for the ongoing dialogue between arguments from both sides of the Atlantic. These elements are blended once again to create third-party results: movements for the construction of geopolitical alliances, and reflections on new equilibriums born from shared history.
Now more than ever, it is essential to bring strategies for the Culture of Peace to the table, especially in a city like Querétaro, which navigates the complexities of mass immigration. One could imagine people as books, metaphors for migratory birds, each of them a universe, all while thinking about Mexico and its global dialogue, on this occasion sung collectively, like an Andalusian chant.”.
Raúl Sangrador, Curator
