Delcy Morelos. Questo articolo non è disponibile.Delcy Morelos

An overdue examination of the Colombian artist’s decade-long, soil-based practice, evincing her contributions to the lineage of land art

For more than a decade, Colombian artist Delcy Morelos (born 1967) has worked primarily with earth, creating immersive environments of geometrically abstract forms. Drawing on Indigenous cosmologies, Morelos’ work explores the sustaining power of mud in its many forms—as a source of life and sustenance.
This bilingual monograph approaches Morelos’ two soil-based installations—Cielo terrenal (2023) and El abrazo (2023)—to explore the artist’s role in the history of land art. The texts consider the natural materials used in her Dia commission and their sensory, spatial and phenomenological impact. The volume also features a selection of stories sourced from Indigenous Colombian communities—Bará, Matapí, Tanimuca, M+n+ca, Uitoto N+pode and Yucuna Kamejeyá—that underscore Morelos’ acute understanding of the sacred relationship between land and its inhabitants.

Published on the occasion of a commission by Dia Art Foundation, the book is not only a retrospective of Morelos's work, but also, delves into the intricate relationships between Indigenous communities and their natural surroundings.

By examining the aesthetic and environmental considerations of the natural materials used in Morelos's installations, readers reflect on their own relationship with the environment and the materials that shape our world.

Includes a conversation between Morelos and Chilean artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña, as well as stories from Indigenous communities in Amazonian Colombia, providing firsthand insights into the cultural narratives that inform Morelos's practice.

Morelos's immersive installations aim to cultivate moments of connection with what she describes as the "intimate humidity of the Earth." This monograph, the first to be published in the United States, situates the Bogotà-based artist's practice within a broader, more global history of Land art and abstraction. It also examines the aesthetic and environmental considerations of the natural materials used in her Dia commission as well as their unique sensory, spatial, and phenomenological impact on the viewer.

The book will uncover the fascinating art-historical grounding of the commission through an introduction by Alexis Lowry, Dia curator. This overview will be supplemented by a meditation on peat, a singular and controversial material in Land art, by curator Camila Marambio and University of Queensland biology professor Renee Rossini, as well as an essay on scent and sculpture by Oswaldo Macía. The book will also feature a statement by the artist herself and a lively conversation between Morelos and the Chilean artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña. In a further exploration of one of Morelos's central creative and intellectual inspirations-Indigenous narratives about land and soil-this volume will publish for the first time a special section of stories from four communities-Barasana, Uitoto N+pode, and Yucuna-based in the Amazonian lands more commonly known as Colombia.