“Going dancing, visiting a prostitute, watching a son’s first steps, getting drunk at the baptism of a nephew: These are the kinds of ordinary pleasures and transgressions that make up everyday life, and artist José Antonio Vega Macotela has partaken of all of these experiences. There’s nothing remarkable about that – except that in each case, the life Macotela was living belonged to someone else. Neither the son nor the nephew was his, he didn’t know the woman with whom he went dancing, and he limited his interactions with the prostitute to conveying a greeting from somebody else. Over the course of his project Time Divisa (Time Currency), 2006-10, Macotela acted as a …”
–Excerpt from article by Chus Martines, from last month`s ArtForum Magazine
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Oh yes. Toñito is back in town for some weeks–nopal accomplice, bisabuela medium, and artist extraordinaire; Mexico city boy, but now living in Amsterdam for a couple of years, since he was awarded the ultra prestigious Rijksakademie Residency scholarship.
The image above is part of the Time Divisa project, in which he would exchange time with prison inmates: while he was in the outside world doing errands on their behalf, they would simultaneously and under his instructions create an art work–many of which had to do with measuring the passing of time… here: a book of “The Count of Monte Cristo”, continuously scratched with a single fingernail by a prisoner while Toño did his deeds.
You can read more about it an interview I did with him right here.
