Skip that amigo, come out with the salad, 2017

Kasia Fudakowski, Skip that amigo, come out with the salad, 2017; Double swing door, with an extract from B.Traven’s short story ‘Assembly line’ painted by Martin Hernandez Robles, a Rotulista (sign writer) from Mexico City. Painted on both sides. Steel, saloon-door hinges, oil based paint; 100 × 230 × 5 cm

The metal Cantina doors which obscure any initial view of the exhibition, carry an extract from B. Traven’s short story entitled ‘Assembly Line’, painted on their surface by Martin Hernandez Robles, a Rotulista (sign writer) from Mexico City. Traven is best known for his short stories first published in the 1920’s about the lives of ordinary Mexicans, which demonstrate a very accurate and insightful local knowledge, despite not being Mexican himself.

B. Traven is the nom de plume of an author who’s biography is shrouded in mystery, made even more complex by the fact that his writings first published in German are full of Anglicisms, whereas those published in English, are full of Germanisms. From the many theories surrounding Traven’s identity and the numerous explanations for his insight into Mexican life, one theory suggests that his stories were simply appropriated and translated into German. The extract focuses on a dialogue between a native New Yorker and an artisan from Oaxaca, setting up the compounding tensions of the exhibition’s context.