Hábitat Imaginario

Claudia Cirici is a young sculptress from Guatemala. Her most recent exhibition delves deeply in one of the most persistent myths in Fantastic Art and Literature, that of lost, forgotten or secret cities, some of which, it is said, were perfect, built by mythical beings, but others found their doom due to their mundane proclivities.

"Morbus is an ancient city... It was built in prehistoric times by a people who are now extinct... I discovered it. I have remodeled and rebuilt it, but largely upon the foundations of the old city, which was splendidly built", tells Edgar Rice Burroughs, of Tarzan fame.

Borges in El Inmortal wrote: "Before any other trait of that astounding monument, I was stoned by the antiquity of its construction. I felt that it was older than men, older than Earth. That notorious antiquity (in a certain way terrible for the eyes) seemed to me the proper work of inmortal masons”.

Nobody, however, has been as able as Lovecraft to further the myth: "Remote in the desert of Araby lies the nameless city, crumbling and inarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by the sands of uncounted ages. It must have been thus before the first stones of Memphis were laid, and while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked".

As Marco Flaminio Rufo (Borges inmortal) did in the lost city of his tale, I wandered through Claudia’s sculptures, idly at first, but increasingly attentive thereafter. I left the Museum premises but her works permeated my mind and came with me, directing my steps to other creators whose idealized cities were left in comics, books or illustrations. Hers, instead, are primordial maquettes, archetypes of what could be called Fantastic Architecture.

Maybe her works are fantastic in nature, but they steam from quintessential art inspired in Escher’s labyrinths, in the bold ideas of Erik Desmazières and in Borges words. Every work in this exhibition has a personal, unique, mark, identifying the hand of Claudia Cirici as her creation, something apparent in the superb patina, finishing and even in the title of every inch of every single marvel of this beautiful collection.
Hábitat Imaginario took place between Oct. 8 and Nov. 9 in the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Guatemala.
Bibliography: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Synthetic Men of Mars, 1940; Jorge Luis Borges, El Inmortal, in El Aleph, 1949; H. P. Lovecraft, The Nameless City, in The Wolverine, 1921.
Images: Abyss of the Four Moons; Infinite Palace C; Windows of the Gods and its fragment, by José Carlos Flores, by kind courtesy of Claudia Cirici.