December 17 - July 9, 2023
From the Blanton Museum of Art:
“The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin presents Las Hermanas Iglesias, the eleventh Contemporary Project in the museum’s series showcasing innovative work by contemporary artists. Based on opposite U.S. coasts, sisters Lisa and Janelle Iglesias collaborate artistically under the name Las Hermanas Iglesias, in addition to their individual practices.
Their Contemporary Project will debut related textiles, collages, and sculpture that explore caregiving as part of a complex network of social issues. Like many of Las Hermanas Iglesias’ previous projects, the exhibition melds cultural references, including to the Dominican Republic and Norway, their parents’ home countries, with personal experiences, most recently their navigations of fertility, pregnancy, loss, and birth. Both sisters gave birth during the COVID-19 pandemic, which reframed caregiving as essential work and brought parenting-related concerns, including access to childcare, family leave, and reproductive healthcare, to the surface.
The centerpieces of Las Hermanas Iglesias’ Contemporary Project are a sculptural installation, plumb and fathom, and large-scale textile work, sea change, that feature the hands and weaving patterns that appear throughout the exhibition, visualizing its themes of interconnection. Casts of the sisters’ hands, as well as their mother’s and Lisa’s oldest child’s, serve as motifs for comfort and care. In some instances, they hold textiles in place; in others, they hold objects with personal and symbolic meanings related to parenting and family planning. The warp and weft pattern, appearing in both collage and textile works, acts as a metaphor for networks of mutual support. The warp threads of sea change wind through the installation of plumb and fathom, colored with natural dyes derived from plants and herbs, including those used to manage fertility. Titles throughout the show utilize wordplay and multiple meanings, echoing the artists’ resistance to a singular narrative of reproductive and caregiving experiences. Displaying the palindrome “dammit I’m mad,” the large neon work titled Dar a Luz (a colloquial Spanish idiom for giving birth) acknowledges the full range of emotions these experiences bring.”
On View: December 17, 2022 | 12–5 pm
Martin Luther King at Congress
Austin, 78701 TX
(512) 471-7324
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