Citerón IV [Cithaeron IV] (2003)
Colour photomontage on dibond
90.5×115 cm
BA Collection
Inventory No.: 2003.29.1
The striking photographs of Ixone Sádaba refer to a mythical place, Mount Cithaeron, where wild women known as the Bacchae caused chaos. This is where Pentheus, lured by Dionysus, would be torn limb from limb; Dionysus is the other who is – to a large extent – the same, the one who drives and compromises what is seen. The voyeur’s desire and the raving of the mother would lead to the horror of a head on a stick carried by the person who, in every sense, gave life. Yet again, it is significant how Ixone Sádaba resorts to a story of fury and violence to place her photographic micro-stories that, as I have already indicated, revolve, incessantly, around being a twin. ‘They father us as twins but almost all of us are born unique. From the beginning we consider ourselves twins, but then one of us disappears. Together, the initial twins face primitive forces and clear a space in this world in which it will be possible for us to tame horses, till the land, survive lightning; then, one devours the other. The twin who disappears leaves behind a body as dry and thin as papyrus’. The inhospitable, the fascination, the sacrificial fear and, of course, the need to establish ceremonies, creative processes, appear around that duplicity. (Fernando Castro)
Sádaba addresses her interests through photography, installation and performance art, constantly exploring the limits of the individual and violent nature of humanity, through what she calls ‘political scenarios’. Photography acts as a field study laboratory, through which she questions the view and its conventions, beyond the normative frameworks that define or seek to define the image. Her research focuses on the limits of the individual and the tensions inherent in notions of identity and agency.