Blue poetics and color politics in the artistc work of Seba Calfuqueo

Abstract

Color is one of the most relative formal elements in art pieces and, perhaps, one of the least attended aspects in contemporary artistic practices. In this work I seek to reflect on the blue color in the work of the Seba Calfuqueo, mapuchean contemporary artist. Kallfü is the word in mapudungun that designates blue and contains a sacred and symbolic dimension, evoked in different visual moments in the artist’s works. From this finding, I propose a reflection on the common and insistent poetics around blue in Calfuqueo. I suggest that the aesthetic decision of blue can be read from at least two positions: (1) as a rereading of the kallfü meaning of current historical conditions; (2) in its performative sense, as a mode of appearance alternates with the coloration of the whiteness that constitutes the modern ethos.