EL RESULTADO DE ESE HERMOSO MODO DE TRATAR LAS COSAS: INTERVIEW WITH CIELO VARGAS
Mariluz Ortiz
“En nuestra vida cotidiana nuestros asientos
tienen cierta cosa de "territorio personal,
la silla nos permite echar una mirada
sobre el alma humana”. (1)
The Foreign Language Department is a very crowded place every single day. Daily many of us pass through the corridor that for us holds nothing special, but for people like Cielo Vargas it is the perfect place to express the space's functionality. Cielo is an art student at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. She is finishing her major and is presenting her monograph project called "El resultado de ese hermoso modo de tratar las cosas" Part of her work can be observed in the hall of the Foreign Language Department building.
Cielo's work is not just a decoration for our building; it is an outstanding art project that has been developed since 2001. Tire work has two parts; the first one is located in the teachers' staff room of the Arts Department and the other one in our building.
Although her work on the wall of the Foreign Language Department is a small chair spread along the wall, many interpretations can be taken from it. "It was strange for me finding out wliat people saw in those paintings. Many people thought they were birds or fish and it was not my intention to tell them those were chairs" she said. For her, it is interesting to see how people take her work because it is a reflection of how works on the walls can interact with people who inhabit those places.
The freedom not only to create but also to interpret is what she calls "Art" and it is the main difference between her work as art and not as decoration. Her real intention was to install something in the space that had communication with the elements that are in such a space.
For us, a wall is just a wall, but for an artist like Cielo Vargas, a wall is not only the wrapper of space but the value that this surface has in this space. In this sense, her work is a way to understand that space; it is an intervention in the space from its surface: the wall. She points out that a wall is public and allows us to cover it with our looks, it exists, it's a presence although not always does it reveal its mystery.
It is fascinating to realize the qualities of a place such as the Hall of the Foreign Languages Department. Tire characteristics of the place gave Cielo the idea of creating a work in watercolor with repetitive images or something dynamic that would complement the speed of people walking in this space. "Maybe through repetition I could perpetuate the beauty of the forms I want to inhabit" said Cielo.
The structure of the hall wants to communicate the landscape of the outside with the inside of the building through its stained-glass window. That's why Cielo chose a red colour to make a complement with the green color of the glass that is outside the building.
Artists such as Leger and Sol Le Witt influenced this young artist to work with chairs. "A chair is the nearest reflection of human anatomy, it gives a measure"1 According to the student, the idea came up from the relation that there is between the chairs and the everyday life of humans: without caring about money, there will always be a chair in a house.
Cielo's work is a sample of contemporary creations. And according to her, today there is more tolerance to accept new tendencies in Colombia. "There is a more open conception of art and that's ideal."
Interview done on September 10, 2004.
Charlotte and G. Fiell (2000). “Modern Chairs”. Page 8 in El resultado de ese hermoso modo de tratar las cosas. Page 22.
Very interesting piece of art, congratulations for posting this.
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