Writing Initiatives

The body is the vector and the resource Azcona has at his disposal to reveal the cruelties of man-made structures of power and desire. His birth, from the union between his heroin-addict prostitute mother and an unknown father, was the result of a nexus of exploitative forces. His mother was not allowed to abort, his childhood was spent in poverty, mired in physical abuse and social stigma. Adopted by a wealthy family at the age of 7 that was ultra-religious, he grew up on the principle of corporal punishment, and his life was marked by intermittent violence until he ran away and began living on the streets. While in a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed with a personality disorder, he heard of performance art and has since been making participatory performances and installations. His works, often radical, comment upon instances of abuse, oppression, and fascism, and are committed towards expanding the dialogue around taboo subjects.

Drawing upon the context of his birth, in Biological Meetings, Abel  is seen lying in the foetal position under a white sheet held by a heavily pregnant woman. When he was 26, he shaved his legs, pumped hormones in his body to develop breasts, and prostituted himself in the Santa Fe neighbourhood of Bogotá; he called this work La Calle (The Streets). In La Guerra (The War), he serves up his ketamine-induced body at the altar of people’s imagination; he is simultaneously in the performance and not there. In this work, he enters a trance-like state, inviting both pleasure (some caress him) and transgression (others put out their cigarettes on his body). With his face pushed against the pillows, he gives the impression of not being wholly unconscious, thus signifying a limited presence but a presence nonetheless. Through all of these, Abel wants to reach the moment of his conception, perhaps to confront a world that thrives on hyperconsumerism but limits choices – his art seems to be an attempt to show the rot in the system that dehumanises people like Azcona’s mother and prevents them from exercising their rights to a dignified life. In his exhibition Political (dis)order in Romainmôtier, (t)his body disappears from sight: all that is present are some documents he procured—party memberships, donations made to parties in Spain and in other countries, letters of thanks for donations, receipts, etc. A person, in effect, is reduced to a number or a card.  This work came at a time when Spain was mired in crisis; rampant corruption, a weakened opposition, and the whole system thrown into disarray. In Pain, a project in collaboration with Lili Txt, he drags himself around with a noose tied around his neck: an umbilical cord, once an anchor, now a cross to bear. Through interventions like this, the artist demands accountability from those who claim to serve people; he demands an answer for his mother and her memory.