Marta Palau, a sculptor whose work took on feminist themes at a time when few others in Mexico were doing so, has died at the age of 88. Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL) announced her death in a statement on Friday.
INBAL said Palau “has made an invaluable contribution to the culture of Mexico and Latin America.”
While still relatively under-known outside of Mexico, Palau’s work is highly respected within the country where she was based for almost her entire life. She began as a painter and, during the 1970s, began producing the works for which she is best known, sculptures incorporating natural materials.
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More often than not, these sculptures make prominent use of weaving and textiles, moving a medium long considered women’s work to a more conceptual end.
Born in Albesa, Spain, in 1934, Palau and her family moved in 1940 to Tijuana after the fall of the Second Spanish Republic. She went on to attend art school in the country, but it wasn’t until she studied textile production with artist Josep Grau-Garriga in Barcelona in the 60s that she decided what would become her medium of choice.
In 1968, Palau became one of 45 artists who founded Salón Independiente, an initiative that sought to show conceptual art that stood in stark opposition to the figuration and abstraction favored by Mexican politicians. In a show organized by Salón Independiente, Palau and Gilberto Aceves Navarro showed alchemical setting (Alchemical Environment), 1970, a structure formed of wooden panels covered with newsprint. Viewers could step between the panels and see, at their center, a large yellow triangle that was painted with parts of the word “Tetragramaton,” a transliterated version of God’s name in Hebrew texts.
The work was destroyed, but a copy was created. In an interview with conferencesPalau described the piece as “a talisman of protection and strength,” alluding to a shamanic quality that appeared in many of her works in later years.
Other pieces from Palau from that era show an overtly sexual quality. Ilerda V (1973), a jute and cotton sculpture named after the province where Palau was born, features a large incision in its center that makes it appear vaginal. Waterfall (Waterfall), 1978, is even more clearly erotic. It is a large shaped installation in which a series of thin nylon bands hang down a wall and are allowed to pass through the floor. Palau called it a “river of sperm”.
Later works from Palau would make significant use of locally sourced materials. Henequen (a plant used to make agave) and corn husks appear frequently in her works from the 80s; she transformed them into installations that considered the relationship between the body and the surrounding landscape. Toward the end of the decade, she merged her spiritual interests with these materials for a series called “Naualli,” which is named for the Nahuatl word for “witch” or “witch.”
Palau’s work has been acclaimed in Mexico and has been featured in biennials such as the 1986 Havana Biennial, where she won the top prize, and the 1987 São Paulo Biennial. In 2017, she was featured in the show Radical Women: Art of the Americas Latin, 1960–1985,” which was shown that year at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles before going to the Brooklyn Museum.
Members of the Mexican art scene took to social media to mourn Palau. Curator Cuauhtémoc Medina wrote on Twitter that she was “Mexico’s greatest textile sculptor”.
