Lanas (Yarns)

Lanas (Yarns) is made up of one thousand six hundred pieces of yarn in forty different colours, with no black or grey. They are arranged at random in a four by four space, with small bells hanging from them at different heights. The work produces a colour-filled space whose form and acoustic qualities would change should the viewer walk through it, in keeping with the idea of action or performance. In the current installation, Lanas seeks to evoke the situations which interactions with the viewer would produce in the work, such as the random sound of the bells or changes in its visual structure as the yarn becomes tangled when penetrated. The concept is in line with the interests explored by Zaj, which in its early years focused on action and musical evocation through gestures or random actions at the Conciertos Zaj.
Conceptually, Lanas is linked to Proyecto 1 (Project 1), which the artist submitted for Kassel’s Documenta 5 in 1972, but which was only constructed for the 1983 exhibition Fuera de formato (Out of Format). Conceived as a large cubic structure, Proyecto 1 is also designed for an enclosed space which the artist defined as “solid, transparent or colourless or any colour” and which was equally as important as the additional elements inside. In the 1983 installation, the structure housed the numerous pieces of coloured card from the 1967 work Suelo Zaj (Zaj Floor) or Puvimenzuj. In putting together Lanas, Hidalgo maintained the colourful effect of the installation, moving resolutely towards an evocation of the permeability of the artistic space and its interaction between the physical and sound.

Carmen Fernández Aparicio