Negras Absolutas, Cordilleras Cangrantes I 2011– 2015

“Las Cordilleras del Duce“ is a poem from the book Anteparaíso (1982) of the chileno poet Raúl Zurita. It tells a story about a place in a real mountain region, namely the Andes Mountains. At the same time it is a story of a fictive mountain range which stretches like a malignant growth from the Pacific Ozean to the west and in doing so it erases everything on its way. The poem which was written during the military dictatorship in Chile uses a symbolic language which can be seen as an opportunity to reflect the reality of the oppressed country at the time.

In the Installation Absolute black, bleeding Mountain (orig. Negras absolutas, cordilleras sangrantes) Carla Bobadilla works with images and objects that on the one hand relate to the poem of Zurita and on the other hand with the geographic and historical relations which connect the two far apart lying mountains and water areas in principal with each other: the Andes Mountains and the Alps, the Pacific Ocean and the Danube. Her concept contains autobiographic references: the Andes Mountains in being a mountain region and the Pacific Ocean in being the artist’s place of birth, the Alps and the Danube in being part of the country she has been living and working in for the past 13 years. The exhibition confronts the visitors with artworks where the controversy mirrors indelible historical traces that can be recovered in the landscape and life in general that is being lived there today.