Elizabeth Dychter's Residency 2019

Apparently ironic and irreverent, Elizabeth Dychter conveys a deeper reflection than what the observer visually appreciates. The breast, a powerful female instrument, is presented in two installations under the title Tetas (Breasts). Beauty and decadence, love and pain, life and death, all summarized in the same “breast.” Born and raised in Buenos Aires, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, she knew from the very beginning what the transmission of memory and the value of life meant. After a journey of more than 30 years, rich in successes and recognitions, the artist continues to delve into the need to leave a legacy.

Elizabeth Dychter's work is the result of a one-month artistic residency at the Faenza Art Ceramic Center (FACC), involving an extensive technical process with porcelain, in which she developed and incorporated new concepts in collaboration with the center’s technicians and curators. Thus, the FACC adds a new chapter to this fertile, sensitive, cultural, and artistic alliance between continents, with a reference point: the city of Faenza.

The works will be on display in the new Faenza space for contemporary art: Officine Matteucci, which boasts a rich artistic and historical identity; recognized as the National Center for the work of entire generations of Matteucci wrought iron craftsmen, from 1640 to 1960. Today, Officine Matteucci is lead and managed by four young Faenza natives, a team with extensive professional capabilities.

Elizabeth Dychter: "Tetas" (Breasts), 2012-2019

Tetas series started after a routine mammogram, which showed something unusual in one of my breasts. My exams were fine, and I was not sick, but with that in mind, I started to research breast cancer in Argentina, where I was born.

One in eight women was going to develop breast cancer in Buenos Aires. It shocked me. The numbers were alarming. I had to do something. I was not in those statistics now, and not to be in the years to come; I had to create awareness.

Something so full of life as a mother’s breast, the absolute beauty in The Renaissance, the sexy cleavage in the 90s could become the worst nightmare. Life and death, beauty and decadence, the beginning and the end … all in a breast.

At first, came Notifíquese y archívese (Notify and archive), a huge shelving full of beautiful breasts. Eight in each row, to be exact. Seven of them, with pink lace representing the fight against breast cancer, and the eighth crackled, with black lace. The one who didn’t make it. That was the beginning of Tetas.

Then I created Donde sea que vayas, mamá te está mirando (Wherever you go, Mamma is watching you). The eyes of the Mona Lisa, looking at you from a breast. This last one was followed by Colgada como la Mona (Hanging like the Mona), a play of words in Spanish, Mona = Monkey.

Then came Delicada decadencia (Delicate Decadence), where I started working with porcelain to find the whiteness of a perfect boob. It also appeared as the Venus de Botticelli (Venus of Botticelli). At first, breasts were the epitome of beauty, but then, they started to crackle until they faded—an allegory of disease.

In the last ten to twelve years, I’ve only worked with porcelain, which is difficult to find in Argentina and Uruguay. That’s why I started making art residencies worldwide because in my country it was impossible to find good porcelain. Finally, I began to import it just for me, so now I only work with Parian porcelain, which I find best for my work.

Initially, it was only the eyes of the Mona Lisa or the head of The Birth of the Venus. Then I started to use the images of other Renaissance paintings. Usually from Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, or Botticelli, my favorites. Spring, Lady with the unicorn, and my own eyes.

I work with customized decals mixed with commercial bugs and flower decals, symbolizing that death can also lie beneath the beauty.

Choosing clay

Almost by chance, Elizabeth Dychter came to ceramics to dazzle with her work.

• How did your journey with ceramics begin? Had you had other artistic experiences before?

My journey with ceramics began quite casually and, in hindsight, in a pretty amusing way. I was very young when my father-in-law moved into my house. I decided I had to get away from him because he was very demanding. Two blocks from my home, I saw a sign at the Asociación Española del Socorro Mutuo de Belgrano that read: “Ceramics lessons, Prof. A. Jones.” And I walked in. It was 1988. The following year, I joined Alejandra Jones's private workshop. Before and while I was learning how to work with ceramics, I studied textile art with Rosa Chernoff, which I abandoned later to stick with clay.

• Were you self-taught, or did you have teachers who initiated you into this artistic journey?

As I mentioned earlier, my teacher was Alejandra Jones. I have never felt the need to change workshops because I believe Alejandra was the best teacher I could have ever found. She is extremely generous with her knowledge and has an unparalleled human touch.

• Does the choice of raw materials condition or determine the type of work? Or the process is the other way around?

Until I ventured into porcelain around 2012, I had never even thought about whether the material influenced the type of work I would create. It was simply a matter of letting my hands touch the clay and allowing the images to emerge.

Today, working exclusively with Parian porcelain, I would say it absolutely conditions me. I need to know beforehand what I want to create to figure out how to build it.

• What are the themes that inspire or move you?

For most of my life as a ceramic artist, my recurring theme was the Holocaust. As the daughter of a survivor, I felt the need to convey my father's experiences through my work. I believe that life and death is what inspires me. For example, my series Tetas (Breasts) is about breast cancer. Nowadays, my colorful waves in the series Colapso (Collapse), made of Parian porcelain, is about disasters and resilience.

• Any plans for the rest of the year?

My plans for the rest of the year include studying 3D programming and continuing to experiment because I have a significant project coming up in Italy next year involving a 3D printer.

In the very center of history

Without images, there is no memory, and without memory, there is no history. When we talk about images, we are also talking about language, memory, and knowledge. Starting from this premise, we can assert that the tragedy of the Shoah must be possible to imagine. Far away from Adorno's thoughts, which denied the possibility of poetry after this disaster, the circumstance posed the sublimity of Auschwitz, making horror inconceivable and unspeakable, concepts that, in the future, bear the weight of forgetfulness. Can we then continue to argue, nowadays, that there is no way to represent the Shoah?

Elizabeth Dychter takes a defined stance of resistance and proposes an image for such atrocity; the sculptural ceramics is the chosen means through which she translates her father's experiences in Auschwitz. Those torsos with bowed heads that reveal their drama in the cracking of the glaze, figures of those marching towards the trains, without distinguishing features, anonymous, their identities lost.

The artist presents us with a history of horror but with a renewed interpretation, since she did not live through such circumstances. Undoubtedly, addressing historical trauma from an aesthetic perspective presents disagreements and ambiguities, but the truth is that every memory could be laden with these concerns because there is no singular and all-encompassing collective memory.

This shows us that the resistance of the images represented in this sculptural corpus entails that history does not close and paves the way for these events not to fall into oblivion.

Luciana Acuña

Arte Mediante

Curatorial Team