Lost, But Not Forgotten by Sara Rosenberg
At first glance, Doris Salcedo’s Atrabiliarios looks as though it is
simply three beige rectangles painted on the wall, but upon closer inspection
the beige shapes become transparent, and a pair of shoes comes into view. Around the border of each of the rectangles
is thick black surgical thread, sewn into the wall. The beige material is cow bladder, stretched
and sewn to the wall in front of the shoes, which have been mounted in a cube
that has been dug into the wall.
The piece focuses on lost people,
and the shoes hidden within the wall once belonged to real people, but these
people have since gone missing, leaving only their shoes behind. Salcedo addresses the issue of missing people
in this moving piece through representation of the human body. Using the cow
bladder, shoes and surgical thread. The
cow bladder represents the skin, or the outside of the body, while the hole in
the wall represents the inside of the body—thoughts, feelings, and etcetera. The surgical thread keeps the cow bladder
attached to the wall in a haphazard manner, but it is secure and keeps the
shoes within the wall. The piece
expresses the sense that even though the people might have been lost, their
shoes remain and the memory of the people still continues in those who knew
them.
The construction of the piece—especially the manner in
which the cow bladder is sewn to the wall with the dark black surgical
thread—gives the piece a human touch and allows the viewer to relate to it. Salcedo causes the reader to feel remorse
over the loss of the people whose shoes are displayed, without knowing them
personally. The way that the work is
comprised makes the viewer feel almost a personal connection to the missing
people, and it makes the overall beauty of the piece all the more evident
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