NoraCorreas

Back to ethics: the work of Nora Correas
By Corinne Sacca Abadi

Nora Correas' work displays utopian topics in which the main point is a reappraisal of the spiritual world. Constant references to the absolute are rooted in a vindication of nature related to the origins, and in the question of the sense of human existence in the universe. The artist approaches the effects of the abuse of power, the problem of genetic manipulation, the hypertrophy of reason, solitude and the lack of communication among people.
In her work, the quest for beauty is not ruled by the classic canons of the metaphysics of art, related to harmony, good proportion and the ordering of chaos. Her objective is not even fulfilled through an emotional catharsis, and it is far from seeking the spectator's satisfaction. It aims to redeem what is true, even though the contemplation of her work may be "uncomfortable" and provoke anguished reactions. Ethics prevails over aesthetics. The ethics of creation is the search for truth, not as a certainty in the sense of ultimate truth, but as genuine personal experience. An artistic experience may be "tough", but if true, it "awakens" and surprises, it is touching, and... soothing.
Part of the present artistic expressions retrieve a critic attitude, through Vattimo's "feeble and oscillating thought". It focuses on meanings, gradually becoming detached from conceptual art's skepticism and from minimalism.

Nora Correas' artistic career starts under the influence of her father who, besides a practising physician, was Headmaster of the School of Fine Arts of Mendoza, an Argentine province where she was born. In 1966 she finishes her studies in the National University of Cuyo (Argentine region which includes the province of Mendoza) and obtains a scholarship from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes (National Endowment for the Arts). She leaves for Buenos Aires where she studies painting with Battle Planas. In 1967, while carrying her daughter Javiera, her interest focuses on the world of fibers and textures, and her first artistic activities are related to textiles.
She soon abandons her initial flat tapestry to incorporate volume, until she gets to soft sculptures. Between 1970 and 1973 she runs a tapestry atelier in Praiado, a beach near Río de Janeiro (Brazil), where she lives at that time. The chromatism in her work intensifies and soon she attains a new synthesis of ochre, red, black and different shades of brown. Travelling around Latin America she does research on the tradition of aboriginal weaving, particularly in Guatemala, Mexico and Perú. Away from conventional textile design, her work tends towards more heterodox patterns, drifting to objectualism.

During the last military government in Argentina (1976-1983) the interweaving of her work articulates folds and black holes, a metaphor for the intertwining of the living and the dead. (Esto no tiene nombre [This has no name], 1981, and En carne viva [Raw wound], 1984). In 1986 she exhibits Penélope -an environment of monumental dimensions- at the Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires.

The creation of matter implies the feminine universe: to weave, to warp, to braid, to tie knots, are activities culturally linked to the motherly aspects of creation and sacrifice. During her work Nora is deeply connected with her inner self, in a state of creative meditation. She fluctuates, now keeping the mind void of thoughts, then spreading out vitality urged by spontaneous and restless action. Sometimes she appears withdrawn within herself, absorbed in her own sequence of associations, as if she were imagining a story, a dramatization, a mise en scène. Her work as a whole conveys deep affectionate intensity. In times of political horror in Argentina she approaches repression and its effect on society. Her soft sculptures, void of narration, make poetry out of the text that cannot be referred to.
All along her production she manages to create visceral images related to basic emotions, which reflect her connection with the world around her.

At the end of the 80's she broadens her work boldly introducing new materials, replacing wool fibers with rigid matter such as wire, wood, leather, horsehair and glass. In 1989 she presents Cota, capa, casa, cosa, a series of objects resulting from a rare blend of garments, armors and dwellings, which seem reminders of tribal confrontation and of rituals, both protective and threatening.
Each piece seems to comprise both the victim and the executioner, depicting refuge and protection while wielding fierce defensive devices. Their power stands on the repetition of defensive elements, such as pieces of glass or reeds. The habitat preserves the body; it's home, cave, and garment. The house is pregnant with meaning, pointing out the lacks of the subject.

Nora Correas' work links up opposed and complementary elements: in(side)-out(side), hard and soft, smooth and rugged, bright and opaque. The binary code strengthens the struggle and alternation of opposite poles. Her art expresses deep love for what is ancestral and original, primary and universal. This archaism hints at the need to recuperate languages related to early experiences. She builds a relationship with nature with her own body and the social body as a metaphor of an indissoluble whole. Her work generates communication among people, animals and earth in an intimate mutual understanding with the universe.

From 1986 onwards she comes out to conquer physical space with installations, pieces of work in which the spectator becomes physically involved and receptive to the aesthetic experience. Con los ojos abiertos II [With eyes wide open II] takes part in Champs de la Sculpture 2000, an international sculpture exhibition organized by Paris museums and shown in Champs Elysées and Place de la Concorde, in Paris, during September, October and November, 1999.

The work rises from questions on the sense of life and death, material existence and spiritual transcendence. Nora Correas approaches the problem of freedom and power, and sounds a warning note on the future of humanity.
Three sculptural elements similar to armored garments standing as ancient monuments are metaphors of the opposition between earthly life and spiritual universe, the organic and inorganic, natural and artificial, life and death.

The armored garments, prototypes of those used for centuries, work as protective space that houses a material body barely suggested. The installation faces us with the missing body. We are relieved from the presence of a corpse but the place for the question on transcendence is left to us.
Two trails of tiny black ants link two of the pieces to a central one, which contains several concentric platforms that rise up to where we find a single ant. While the same as the others, it appears to us enlarged by a magnifying glass. The eternal ants represent and bear witness to death and the human desire for immortality. The anonymous insects refer to our survival as a species, but at the cost of lack of freedom. Society needs to idolize some of its individuals -those chosen to embody the ideals of the group, and then worshiped for their power-, forgetting that they're not any different from the rest. Sartre used to define an idol as an imaginary figure created in a void that it comes to fill, taking the place of worshipers' unfulfilled desire.

The ants represent us in our alienation as individuals in a group and in the tendency to automatization that we share with them. They stand as a disquieting example of how instinct works: the insects appear more fit to survive than the so-called superior beings. The instinctive and scientifically efficient response of the ants cannot hide their lack of freedom to choose disobedience. They work as armies. "Smallness multiplied to infinite disquiets me", says the artist. Ants do not repel her; she is more afraid of the human capacity of self-destruction.

The armored garments refer to the void of a missing body and stand as a last abode. The artist seems keen on stating that beyond the imaginary power of man's absurd omnipotence, stronger forces act on the constant transformation which gives existence its meaning.

Sumando (Adding) is the title that Nora Correas has chosen for the anthological exhibition of her work due to take place at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, during December, 1999 and January, 2000. Her work deals with the uncertainty over the future of contemporary man, who wanders between what is below human condition (represented by the insects) and what is superhuman (spirituality). The endless struggle between good and evil turns into the desire to integrate the contradictory. "Human, all too human", would say Zarathushtra. Nora Correas quotes Novalis: "We should assume them as a whole, both good and evil."

Translator: Magdalena Sanz

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