Plazas de Maria ( it means the square of Maria ) is the stools collaborations between the artist Juan Pablo Plazas and Ana María Gómez. In all our collaborations, the only rule is to try out something new with what we are familiar with. In other words, to take a step into the unexplored, together with found and old materials from our own practices.
Pictures by Alexandra Colmenares Cossio
Ana María Gómez in collaboration with Juan Pablo Plazas
Butaco Cat Dog
wood, alpaca weaving.
2022
Sometime ago me and Juan Pablo made a fabulous stool called "butaco peludo" which we showed in Ulterior, Kortrijk. When Sophie saw it, she didn't think twice about inviting us to do a second one. This time we decided to do something more extended to the sides in order to extend the time of sitting down. Imagine a stool with bedside tables incorporated. This one we call "butaco cat dog" because its shape recalls the acclaimed animated series.
(A miniature house, an infinite container)
Ana María Gómez in collaboration with Juan Pablo Plazas
Butaco Peludo
wood, metal, rubber, wool and merinos. 44x36x39 cm.
2021
Works of art and design pieces have infinite stories embedded in them. The first stories are related to how objects came to exist in this world. With the years, with users and owners, other stories add to the ones before on an on. It’s true that things can only occupy a certain place in space and time, but their capacity for containing what’s invisible seems infinite. We’re here to tell you some of the stories that made this piece what it is now, the rest of the stories that will become part of it are absolutely up to you and the people who share the space where you live.
Butaco Peludo means Small Hairy Stool in a very Colombian sense. Not to say that in Colombia there are more or less hairy stools. we even doubt there are any stools with hairs, although my uncle René used to have a kind of poof at home that was entirely covered with cow leather, the one with hairs. I would never forget how strange I thought that object was. We thought the name Butaco Peludo was the most accurate way to communicate what it is and what it seems like. Although when we made it we thought it looked like a miniature Japanese temple, or like a kiosk with a roof made of straw, like the ones that can be found in the sea side of Belgium or France.
What we can say for sure is that everything about this is “new”, even if we followed the commission of Petrus of doing something with residual materials. The “newness” of this piece exists in the fact that this is the first time we collaborate in making a product together and exhibit it. Even if we have been together as a couple for 10 years and numerous times we have helped each other, given advice to each other, and for sure we have influenced each other’s work. We have never made something together up until the Butaco Peludo.
Part of our collaboration was not only to bring together fragments of our practices but to bring together materials that have to do with other people. In general terms the Butaco Peludo is made from wood pieces brought by Karen as a present, she’s a friend that is really good with finding the most strange and useful objects in the street. The rubber mat found together with our neighbour Aaron on a walk, he is also into making assemblages with industrial materials in very unexpected ways. The metal bars we bought in the Brico next door. The upper textile part, what we called the roof, is composed textile residues of Ana María’s design practice. What we mean with textile residues is that these textile tubes were tryouts from a larger project that Ana Maria is conducting over fluid flexible furniture.
As you can guess by now, we think this piece as a house, a kiosk or a temple not only because it looks like a miniature version of it, but also because it functions like a house too. As a house it can hold stories infinitely and it’s stories are built from the relationships that live in it. Maybe the next step of our collaboration would be to make an actual house, or a middle size one, we will keep you posted about it if it ever happens.
Ana María Gómez and Juan Pablo Plazas.
