CLARISSA TOSSIN
Ch’u Mayaa , 2017 Video, color, sound, 17:56 min.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Purchase, with funds from the Film and Video Committee, 2019.320
In Clarissa Tossin’s film Ch’u Mayaa (2017), Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House, built in 1921 at the height of the Mayan Revival style in Los Angeles, is remapped as Mayan space through a sonic and haptic transformation of the building by a series of dance movements performed by Crystal Sepúlveda across the surfaces of its exterior. The film features a soundtrack of birds, cicadas, wind, drums, a heartbeat, thunder, and music played on a clay jaguar flute made by Mayan elder Xavier Quijas Yxayotl. The healing ritual inscribed in these evocative sounds and Sepúlveda’s movements, based on gestures and poses found in ancient Mayan pottery and murals, transform the house into an uncanny echo of the site of its quotation—the ancient ruins of Uxmal in Mexico. This symbolic reclaiming of the borrowed Indigenous cultural motifs of Wright’s building re-signifies it as belonging to a pre-Columbian architectural lineage beyond Modernism, and to the present cultural life of Los Angeles and its Mayan community. The arc of time evoked in this remapping is echoed in the film’s title, Maya blue , a reference to the rare azure pigment found in ancient Mayan wall paintings and ceramics, known for its resilience and endurance over the passage of time.
ADDITIONAL WORKS:
A twoheaded serpent held in the arms of human beings, or, Ticket Window , 2017 Silicone, walnut, faux terracotta (dyed plaster) Overall: 44 13/16 × 53 × 5 1/4 in. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee, 2019.37ac Yaxchilán Lintel 25 (feathered serpent) , 2017 Silicone, walnut, faux serpent skin, synthetic hair, faux quetzal feather. Dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee and Sonia and Gaurav Kapadia, 2019.36ad
A cycle of time we don’t understand (reversed, invented, and rearranged) , 2017 Silicone, walnut, faux terracotta (dyed plaster). Dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee, 2019.35ae Ha’ K’in Xook, from Piedras Negras to Hill Street , 2017 Silicone, walnut, jaguar faux fur, quetzal faux feather (dyed rooster feather). 91 3/4 × 33 1/2 × 16 3/8 in. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee, 2019.38
Top: Installation view: ClarissaTossin, Ch’u Mayaa , 2017, in Mountain /Time , Aspen Art Museum, 2022. Photo: Carter Seddon
Clarissa Tossin, Ch’u Mayaa , 2017, in Mountain / Time , Aspen Art Museum, 2022.Video, color, sound, 17:56 min.Whit- ney Museum of American Art, NewYork; purchased with funds from the Film andVideo Committee 2019. 320. © ClarissaTossin. Courtesy the artist. (still)
8
9
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online