Alfredo Ramirez Raymond is situated in a lineage of metalworkers and mechanics working since the 1930's, with processes ranging from smelting, boa production, to precision machining. In the early 2000's, the introduction of new modes of engineering such as digital fabrication, CNG milling, and replacement over repair (planned obsolescence) lowered demand for this type of metalwork, resulting in the closure of the family business.
In 2020, Alf decided to restore these machines, but not to work with them for profit. Starting in 2022, Ramirez Raymond invited artist friends Rafaela Armendaris, Lucas Neira, and Karin Iturralde to collaborate on a series of pieces reacting to 'stable' discourses-intercepting them with questions usually asked in ethics, design practices, ecology, socio-material impact and modes of production. Alongside his friends' sensibilities, Alfredo's future-building oeuvre is filled with gratitude and care towards his collaborators, living and dead.
(hand)standing on the gates of hell (1)
A stick insect made of half dollars lays on my shoulder and tells me their secrets. I caress it with my fingertips and it seems to enjoy how the friendship rings Karin and you made match its body, my nipples and the amulet you hung on the rear view mirror that reminds you of it, silver surfing. All of them extensions of my body, mark playtime. I really wanted to understand, to fully grasp your intentions around the constant future driven conversations you were having with your friends. It all somehow made sense when I realized how unbothered you were about the idiotic hierarchies between makers and artists. The future on your end seemed to be interested in gratitude for the space, the interactions and time spent together. I guess that explains the nature of the objects that now surround us, tchotchkies, urns, vessels and objects we made together out of necessity, products of our thought synergies, golden charms honoring them.
One time, I told you you make dreams come true(2) while discussing the structure in which 'Not that ancestral' —a piece whose 28lb weight is worth noting— was going to be shown. I referenced how instruction manuals open up structures otherwise permanently assembled in order to explain to the reader its functioning. As someone whose chosen format for dream-to-truth making is paper, I was weirdly astonished by something you told me was as simple as tension and carefully selected standard metal and bronze screws defying gravity. The metal urn suspended in the air made with your family's tools and the two or three pieces you brought from London take good care of the small clay lady Rafaela's grandma found years ago, and I trust the world you built will forever guard it. After all, I trust family heirloom-like methods and labors of love much more than security services.(3)
I'll join the group of people that think of artists as people who deal with matters of care and the matter of caring for things. It kind of makes sense, hiding petromasculinity(4) only waiting for it to be found years from now, not even imagining the moment you told me Lucas and you looked at the metal workshop and joked about making a religion out of it. I think my favorite part is the contradiction: fossil-fueled dreams passed on by our fathers that are very valuable and part of who we are. Loving something that we know is fundamentally wrong (5). Encompassed in this metal vessel my hands are hugging (my eyes well up and my nose tingles) are all resources that the planet and its people provide -all the oil, spices, and metals, the power, sex, and money in the world -are at your disposal to fulfill the promise of transcending material needs through material means that modern culture, rendering itself contemporary over and over again, incessantly renews (6). This vessel also contains family history and the noise that the pouring of the oil makes resembles the dreams our parents told us they had. I'm suddenly guilt-free.
(foot)noting
[1] Jan Verwoert writes about the contemporary in contemporary art, understanding it as 'standing on the gates of hell', not going through them, not observing them, but standing on them, while adding pictures of Rodin's Gates all over the world. The temporality discussion around the contemporary tag makes it difficult to envision a beginning or an ending of it ignoring theory or history discourse, I guess this is why the complex and overwhelming nature of the Gates weirdly fit times where clean shapes and smooth structures are standardized. But the self-referential often endogamic characteristics of post-structuralist philosophy and its influence on how we talk about art are just as entangled as the figures we are now discussing, so I guess it was just a matter of time aesthetics clashed.
Verwoert is also critical about the contemporary attempts of the constant modernizations we're forced to go through, or that we have created in order to move away from the contemporary, inevitably resulting in failure. The constant portal building only allows us to leap from one part of the gate to the other one. Inhabiting the hell of contemporary-ness involves the observation of the elements outside of the gates, longing for hell. While reading Jan's text I could envision (probably powered by the Al visuals that I am now exposed to inevitably) the doors of cold hard steel building themselves up in extremely complex styles, shapes and forms, like liquid. Standing on the gates of hell, reading the uncontemporary comments of my contemporaries about the Gates of Hell, fantasizing about liquid steel's fictional movement autonomy, an angle grinder grinds in the background.
[2] An phrase also present for a long time in RJ Junger's Instagram bio, friend and collaborator of Junin.
[3] Cultural public institutions in Ecuador have historically been deprived of adequate funding, care and initiative by the different governments through the years. The state of the buildings that hold most of our patrimonial goods in the National Collection is downright poor. The specific case of Edificio Aranjuez and the Biblioteca Nacional Aurelio Espinoza Pólit led to an open letter where art historians, conservators and investigators denounced the negligent administration of buildings (multiple tremors and two earthquakes have hit the country after the initial call to action in 2019 and a 70% cut from the budget destined to the archival repertory conservation.
[4] Petromasculinity is a sociological term that refers to the social implications of the fossil fuel energy shift, specifically notions of one's future. Ecuador's economy until the 70s was mostly agricultural. After the first petroleum boom in 1972, big social developments were made possible, and Ecuador experienced Latin America's biggest economic growth (8%) so far. The now oil industry-oriented country relied on petroleum trade and extraction to finance all the structures built during the initial boom. Millions of families changed their idea of success and growth, now focusing on being a part of the newer, cosmopolitan way of living. Petroleum booms also cause rural exodus, meaning a big number of agrarian families move to the city, experiencing changes in ways of living, discrimination and, because of racism, labor precariousness.
One that note, in the 70s the government created a subsidy for gasoline, and for decades Ecuador had one of the cheapest prices for gas in South America. This subsidy allowed rural families to develop economies based on how cheap gas was, creating an alternative market for self-transported crops to stop relying on the usually abusive transportation monopoly system. Also, to encourage car-owning as a cosmopolitan development pretext. Almost fifty years later, Lenin Moreno's neoliberal government suddenly decided, advised by the IMF, to get rid of the subsidy, citing the need to cut down on expenses due to national debt. This led to the 2019 National Strike led by indigenous communities. During 12 days all occupational activities shut down because of the mobilization of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) that demanded a series of improvements of the working conditions of rural workers.
Although the CONAIE's demands were partially met, the 2019 National Strike was this century's biggest indigenous mobilization in Ecuador, and their presence in nowadays political affairs and convening power is notably more present than in previous years.
[5] Alfredo's notes <3
[6] This is a direct extract from Jan's text. Standing on the Gates of Hell, My Services Are Found Wanting. Jan Verwoert. e-flux Issue #12. January 2010.