Cecilia Vicuña Prints and Multiples

Visual poems, the works in Vicuña’s PALABRARmas series are carefully attuned to the power of language. Many of these works incorporate wordplay, and throughout her practice, Vicuña treats words as embodied entities whose forms can be parsed to reveal subliminal meanings across a variety of languages. For the series title, Vicuña has invented the word “palabrarmas,” a fusion of “palabra” (Spanish for “word”) and “armas” (“weapon”). At the same time, “palabrarmas” also suggests an even wider range of meanings, bearing similarities, for instance, to a portmanteau of the the verb “apalabrar” (“to agree on”), and the word “más” (more). Just as Vicuña emphasizes the capacity of words to cause violence and destruction, so she also suggests that they can be potent tools of reconciliation and understanding. Here, in Eman si pasión [Emancipation / Participation] (1974/2016), Vicuña turns her attentions to the Spanish words “emancipación” (“emancipation”) and “participación” (“participation”), and she emphasizes their etymologically related verbs “emanar” (“to emanate”) and “partir” (“to share”). With a play on words, Vicuña’s silkscreen also breaks these words down into component parts, drawing phonetic similarities to the words “si” (“if) and “pasión” (“passion”). Another edition of this work was exhibited as part of 'Cecilia Vicuña...