Crafting Nationness: DIY Venezuela in Deborah Castillo’s RAW and Violette Bule’s REQUIEM200≤ (original) (raw)

2021, Latin American Research Review

This article proposes the concept of nationness to explore the nuances and complexities that permeate the symbolic and material efforts to remember, imagine, and represent the nation among the diasporic community of Venezuelan artists. Focusing on Deborah Castillo's exhibition RAW (2015) and Violette Bule's installation REQUIEM200≤ (2018), it analyzes how the two artists engage in a form of crafting that represents the nation as raw matter (wood, nails, clay) that never achieves a state of completeness or stability. I argue that this act of crafting is interactive and critical. It does not simply remember Venezuela and reproduce it as a spectacle to be passively consumed abroad; it provides the possibility to intervene in systems of power and representation that determine which bodies are visible and which are not, which bodies have power and which do not, which bodies are mourned and who should mourn them. In crafting what I call "Venezuelanness," the artists' work offers the space and the means to think (about) the country differently, beyond the spatial boundaries of its territory, beyond the icons that monopolize its collective imaginary, and beyond the extreme polarization of its politics. Este artículo propone el concepto de "nationness" para explorar los matices y complejidades que permean los esfuerzos tanto simbólicos como materiales de recordar, imaginar y re-presentar la nación en la comunidad de artistas venezolanos de la diáspora. Enfocándose en la exhibición RAW (2015) de Deborah Castillo y la instalación REQUIEM200≤ (2018) de Violette Bule, analiza cómo ambas artistas re-presentan la nación como materia prima o cruda (clavos, madera, arcilla) que no llega nunca a estabilizarse o completarse, sino que se encuentra en una transformación siempre en curso. Argumenta que, al hacerlo, evita reproducir Venezuela como un espectáculo a consumirse de forma pasiva, y logra en cambio crear un espacio donde se cuestionan los sistemas de poder y representación que determinan cuáles cuerpos se hacen visibles y adquieren poder, y cuáles muertes se recuerdan y lamentan. Al construir lo que llamo "Venezuelanness," el trabajo de Castillo y Bule propone formas de pensar a Venezuela más allá de los límites espaciales de su territorio nacional, más allá de los íconos que monopolizan su imaginario colectivo, y más allá de la retórica surgida en torno a su polarización política. Placed atop a tower of bricks in the middle of a dimly lit gallery, a bust welcomed the public that on September 22, 2015, attended the opening night of RAW, the solo exhibition of Venezuelan artist Deborah Castillo at Mandragoras Art Space in Queens, New York (Figure 1). 1 Although there was no explanation of whose bust it was, none was needed: the frown, the beard, and the military epaulettes gave it the authoritative air of the caudillo and brought to mind the boundless power historically embedded in that figure and its many visual iterations in the urban and political landscape of Latin America. 2 There was, 1 Mandragoras Art Space is an organization dedicated to research, experimentation, and the promotion of new approaches in performance. It is committed to providing low-cost rehearsal and media space to the Queens arts community. It collaborates with artists on works that would not fit the formal and conceptual boundaries of the typical contemporary performing arts space and that move beyond the traditional relationship with the audience. 2 For a brief discussion of the figure of the caudillo in Venezuela, see "Caudillismo," 2020,