La Cruz Del BueyInquire about availability
- Year
- 2015
- Technique
- Art Object
- Dimensions
- 80 × 80 × 20 cm
- Status
- Inquire about availability
Curatorial analysis
Curatorial analysis
The horizontal beam makes no attempt to disguise its functional origin: it is an agrarian yoke whose hollows, carved to fit the necks of draft animals, here outline the arms of a cross. In this found-object assemblage, Alexander Chaves fuses sacred iconography with the material evidence of rural toil. The wood, dense, porous, and blackened by the passage of time or by a treatment recalling combustion, preserves the fissures, splinters, and roughness of an organic substance subjected to relentless traction across years of hard labor.
The structure deliberately evades the strict symmetry of a traditional crucifix. The vertical post exhibits a subtle tilt that destabilizes its axis, endowing the piece with an attitude of bodily fatigue, almost human, as though yielding under its own weight. At the junction of both timber blocks, an oxidized iron plate clamps the wood with rustic, square rivets. This utilitarian blacksmith joinery does not merely ensure structural coherence; it introduces a rough, coppery chromatic accent at the exact center of the timber.
Under direct light, the surface reveals an uneven topography where the relief absorbs and scatters illumination. Within the curved hollows where the oxen's necks once rested, shadows turn dense and cavernous, replacing the memory of crucifixion nails with the imprint of yoke straps and harness wear. The absence of a sculpted figure emphasizes that the wood itself embodies suffering; the entire object stands in as the martyr's surrogate.
By exalting a farm implement to the status of a devotional totem, the work establishes an unsparing equivalence between the draft animal's subjugation and spiritual sacrifice. The piece avoids all pious rhetoric to confront the viewer with the physical memory of exhaustion, firmly tethering the notion of Calvary to tilled ground and the countryside's enduring labor.
More works by Alexander Chaves
33 works
Available works
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- BurroInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- Educación EspecialInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2014
- BullyngInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2014
- Escuela 2Inquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- ProfesorInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- EscuelaInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- Old SchoolInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- Verdad o castigoInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2014
- Ruta 1856Inquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2013
- BultoInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- Entre más aprendoInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2013
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