Claudia Hakim: Beyond the Eye of the Beholder

Claudia Hakim at her studio, during the creation of Dédaluz, 2010.

By Carolina González

Colombian sculptor Claudia Hakim’s large-scale metal installations are produced in a warehouse in the middle of an industrial automotive zone outside the city of Bogotá. Her team is made up of seven assistants that man the space more like a workshop rather than an artist’s studio, fully equipped with welding tools, heavy machinery, industrial workstations, and storage. Yet, upon encountering Hakim’s creations, viewers find no trace of the materials’ gritty beginnings; they are instead lured into the penetrable mazes, hypnotized by their magnetic beauty.

Born in Bogota in 1957, the artist studied at the renowned Universidad de los Andes, where she graduated with a degree in Textile Design. She would go on to follow a career in the textile industry, designing and manufacturing patterns. After serving as docent and eventually thesis director in the textile department of her alma mater in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, Claudia left the faculty to complete a degree in Ceramic and Sculpture from Oxford College in the United Kingdom. During her time in England she experimented with several different materials, including concrete, steel, and crystals. But it was in automotive scrap metal that she would find the material best suited for her manipulation. The jump from textile designer to steel sculptor came naturally to the artist, who explains that “the fibers in fabric lose structure and rigidity, and even become tattered to the point of disintegrating; metal, on the other hand, leaves its footprint with the passage of time– it oxidizes, changes color; a chemical reaction which is of much interest to me, as it is characteristic to the material and thus to the piece created.” Although Hakim works with an industrial material, it is one that allows the artist and the viewer to engage in an ever-changing exploration of organic qualities.

Claudia Hakim, Resplandor, 2010, metal rings, variable dimensions.

The artist’s intention is to engulf the viewer in her work. Resplandor, exhibited earlier this year at Galeria Mundo in Bogotá, consisted of 141 feet of automotive metal rings, woven in to a mysterious labyrinth that both intimidates and invites the viewer to become more than a mere bystander. The piece, as is true for many of Hakim’s installations, is incomplete without the participation of the viewer. The artist invites the audience to experience her work, to lose themselves in the glistening hues of gold and silver, and emerge anew amidst the chiming triggered by their touch.

Hakim inhabits an inexhaustible sensory world; one in which the physical properties and/or limitations of material and space are only invitations to explore and push boundaries. She strives to appropriate herself of a given space, transforming it into an artwork, rather than merely placing an artwork in it.

Claudia Hakim has exhibited extensively her work around the world. Among her recent expositions are: “Art under the Skin” (Etra Fine Art, Miami, 2008); “Signos de Piel” (MACZUL. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Zulia, Venezuela, 2008); “Orbitas Orgánicas” (Galería Mundo, Bogotá, 2008); and “Arte de ArmArte” (Museo de Artes Visuales de la Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Bogotá, 2009).

This is necessary because each medicine buy levitra vardenafil contains different compound which works in different manner and relieve erectile dysfunction for long hours. If so are one-time partners, they should just forget and not viagra vs cialis loved that to worry … The prescription order viagra without drug was first synthesized and developed in 2003 by Eli-Lilly and Co. Hormonal imbalances lead cialis soft generic to a wide range of health problems and will need treatment.

Last year, she exhibited in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, in a solo show organized to commemorate 50 years of diplomatic relations between India and Colombia. Titled “Signs of Skin,” the show drew inspiration from jewelry and textiles, magnifying them into monumental artworks.

Her next large-scale project will take place during the Miami International Art Fair in January 2011. Hakim will erect Dédaluz, a grandiose installation of four woven curtains; each made of multi-toned metal rings that have undergone a chemical treatment. The piece will transform basic weaving techniques and utilitarian materials into a superlative chamber of free-flowing forms that, despite their organic feel, are invariably composed of inanimate objects. The installation will be part of the curated projects initiated by the fair’s organizers.

Miami International Art Fair (January 14 - 17, 2011).  Miami Beach Convention Center. 1901 Convention Center Drive. Miami Beach, FL 33139. For more information visit, www.claudiahakim.com  / www.ncearte.org  /

Claudia Hakim is represented by Etra Fine Art. 50 NE 40th St., 33137 /  www.etrafineart.com / info@etrafineart.com

Carolina González is an art critic and writer based in Miami, Florida.