Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Art in Art History and Visual Culture

Department

Art

First Advisor

Stefanie Snider

Second Advisor

Jonathan Frederick Walz

Third Advisor

Trenton Olsen

Abstract

Abraham Cruzvillegas’ Autoconstrucción project is the sculptural manifestation of an approach to artmaking rooted in the self-built and continually evolving forms of the neighborhood where Cruzvillegas grew up (Colonia Ajusco near Mexico City). While it might seem surprising to draw a comparison between the forms of Autoconstrucción and Disability Studies, and while Cruzvillegas does not literally depict the disabled human form, Autoconstrucción resonates deeply with this critical space. Disability Aesthetics, in Tobin Siebers’ formulation, is “an attempt to theorize the representation of disability in modern art and visual culture.” Similarly, Jessica Cooley’s Crip Materiality is a methodology that “locates disability in the material noncompliance of art objects.” Together, Disability Aesthetics and Crip Materiality present a new way of considering Autoconstrucción, revealing the ways its roots in self-building, improvisation, and the “unfinished” subvert the ableist standards of beauty, fit-ness, and rationality. The deliberate “imperfections” of Autoconstrucción and its intentional emphasis on deviating from the traditionally accepted ideal of what an artwork is or how it is constructed, draw parallels to explorations of human variation and difference.

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