Feliza Bursztyn — Welding Madness

“En un país de machistas, ¡hágase la loca!“

“In a Sexist Country, pretend to be the Mad One!“

— Feliza Bursztyn, 1979

Feliza Bursztyn: Welding Madness is the first museum retrospective of Colombian artist Feliza Bursztyn (1933 Bogota, Colombia–1982, Paris, France) to be presented outside her home country. Bringing together approximately 50 sculptures, films, installations, and archival material, most of which are shown for the first time in Europe, this ambitious, career-spanning survey at Muzeum Susch positions Bursztyn as one of Latin America’s most important sculptors of the 20th century.

A pioneer in kinetic sculpture, Feliza Bursztyn created wrecked metal sculptures with ghostlike yet comical humanoid traits that addressed the social effects caused by the aggressive modernization of Colombian society. Composed of industrial junk, often motor-animated, these works perform a theater of dystopian industrial hybrids. Bursztyn’s immersive installations are characterized by their disconcerting mechanical sound produced by the frenetic vibration of the sculptures, as well as by occasional music scores accompanying the pieces. The artist’s works and sculptural mise-en-scènes enact sites of aesthetic resistance and antithetical political investment, creating a unique experience that raises awareness on the situation and the perception of women in a male-dominated society and reveal the troublesome face of modernity.