Alexander Chaves
QuinceañeraInquire about availability
- Year
- 2014
- Technique
- Marble and Wood Carving
- Dimensions
- 20 × 10 × 10 cm
- Status
- Inquire about availability
- Palette
- marble white, carmine, antique bronze, absolute black
- Brushwork
- Carved and polished marble in smooth cylindrical surfaces with regular indentations, combined with carved and meticulously polychromed wood.
Curatorial analysis
Curatorial analysis
A revolver cylinder sculpted in white marble rises against a pitch-black void, stripped of the barrel and hammer that would complete the firearm. Instead of lead bullets, each of its seven chambers holds a metallic-looking casing from which the slanted, unctuous tip of a crimson lipstick emerges. This direct substitution instantly upends the nature of the weapon, shifting it into an intimate and heavily charged terrain.
The clash of materials drives the strength of the ensemble. The white stone, cold and satin-finished, evokes classical purity and monumental solidity, while the cylinder's vertical flutes accurately replicate the mechanical grooves of the original mechanism. In contrast, the carved wood cylinders simulating tarnished casings hold the vivid red of the makeup, whose beveled edge precisely mimics the routine wear of a lipstick against skin.
The piece's title, Quinceañera, sharply directs a critical reading of the object. The transition ritual marking a young woman's supposed entry into adult courtship is often inaugurated by social permission to wear lipstick, conceived as an initiatory ornament. By seating that very stick inside the chamber of a firearm, the sculpture casts cosmetics as ammunition and the mandate of beauty as a potentially harmful mechanism, where prescribed femininity shares caliber with danger.
The circular arrangement, seen from a subtly high angle, lends the piece the presence of a frozen roulette or a petrified ceremonial cake. The restrained elegance of the carving does not rely on visual stridency; it opts instead for a sober irony that lays bare the latent violence embedded in the most normalized rituals of domestic and social life.
More works by Alexander Chaves
33 works
Available works
Inquire about availability
- MadonnaInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2014
- SilencioInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2014
- Punta de MujerInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- Verdad o castigoInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2014
- ProfesorInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- Educación EspecialInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2014
- SentimientosInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- ChoncoInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2014
- Escuela 2Inquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- BultoInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
- Old SchoolInquire about availabilityAlexander Chaves · 2015
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