Author: William Cordova
Variable dimensions.
120 loudspeakers.
The title refers to both the pop culture surrounding Cordova and the Incan ruins in the mountains of Peru. The artist has scattered offerings at the feet of the silent idol, created from a pile of old speakers: record sleeves, broken record albums, wrapped sweets, a broken speaker and a Peruvian pumpkin.
One of the things Cordova remembers about when he first emigrated from Peru to Miami in the late seventies was the sight of what he then thought were drawers scattered on the streets. In Peru, these drawers were nothing but old fruit boxes turned into “musical instruments” played by the slaves as a way of expressing their longing for freedom. What Cordova was seeing in the streets of Miami were not drawers but empty speaker boxes. By using these materials in his installation, Cordova is trying to be a voice for the cultures that are marginalized by the consumer society of big cities. He uses trash and discarded items on the street to speak out on behalf of migrants against the predominant culture in urban societies.
The work titled Badussy (or Machu Picchu after dark) in the INELCOM Arte Contemporáneo collection was part of an exhibition held at the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo in Madrid titled “Pop Politics, Activismos a 33 revoluciones” (November 2012-April 2013).