Let us imagine, for a moment, that two geographies that seem to have very little in common, can be linked by physical matter. That, despite their differences in latitude and longitude, in political history and language, that they might be bound (at least for an imagined instant) by something as subtle as the seasonal pattern of rain, as insidious as the unplanned sprawl of urban development, or as seemingly unremarkable as mud.
Read More1. In his 2017 exhibition at Trama, Edgar Calel includes a new body of work, all marked by red mud. The work derives from his recent travels along the border between Paraguay and Brazil. While there, Calel offers his hosts seeds of maize and squash from his home in Comalapa. In return, members of the guaraní kaiowa community in Brazil offer him a gift: standing barefoot in the area's reddish soil, they step on page after page of Calel's notebook, leaving their footprints for him to carry home. He exhibits these pages unaltered; i.e. his exhibition is the remaining evidence (a video, these prints on paper) from an affectionate exchange between a group of people and an artist.
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