Abraham González Pacheco
WORK
I conduct a personal exploration about my own origins and those of my hometown, San Simón el Alto; it leads me to establish an interpretation of my own identity through my art. From a fictional archaeological site, to anti-monuments that eschew commemoration, and fleeting murals representing institutionally imposed ideas of progress or landscapes warped by strategies of power. I propose an alternative to the externally enforced narrative of our history, overflowing with fiction. My intuition leads me to reconstruct my family’s story through archaeology, using fragments of my community’s collective memory.
With the images I create, I highlight the path that the wind tears open in the mist which will not clear, but which we follow in hopes of reaching clarity. This is how I envision art, a trail that never ends but keeps us moving forward, and one which helps me understand my surroundings– or at least, to come closer to understanding.
BIO
BORN IN 1989 IN SAN SIMÓN EL ALTO, MALINALCO, MEXICO
LIVES AND WORKS IN TEPOZTLÁN
Visual artist, production designer, drawer and archaeology aficionado. Abraham González Pacheco’s work is rooted in his interest and romanticization of Mexican History, combined with a lack of historical records of his hometown, San Simón el Alto, Malinalco, east of Mexico City. Through drawing, he con-jures up archaeological fictions, inspired by the rapid transformation of the landscape as a side-effect of political interests, institutional corruption, and the centralization of the city and its population. His work proposes an alternative narrative that feeds on the gaps left by official History, achieving through this exercise to question our idea of “identity”, imposed amongst an important part of the Mexican population.
His process has led to several projects, such as Yacimiento 34 [Site 34], a fictitious archeological dig in the Buenos Aires neighborhood in Mexico City. It included a dig of medium depth and a site museum where locals could take a look at their past through the objects found in the dig. Abraham has recorded and reinterpreted these objects through pictures, generating a new, personal sort of archaeology.
His large format drawings act as elements of scenography in public spaces and encourage other artis-tic agents to appropriate them: from there, the project Centros y Periferias Inestables [Unstable Centers and Peripheries] was born, supported by a Jóvenes Creadores (Young Creators) grant from Mexico’s National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA) in 2016-2017.
He is the founder of Obra Negra, publisher of contemporary graphics, which highlights and connects young Mexican artists. He currently works on the project Las piedras hablan cuando la historia calla [Rocks speak when history is mute], once again supported by a grant from Mexico’s National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA).
His work has been shown in several museums and cultural spaces throughout Mexico, such as the Cultural Center of Arts in San Luis Potosí, the Interactive Museum of Durango, the Leopoldo Flores Museum in Toluca, the Alameda Art Laboratory, and the University Museum of Science and Art (UNAM). His pieces are also part of the collection of the Zuckerman Museum of Art (USA).