Join The Collection to save, track, and explore works like this.

rafa esparza — TSO Hybrid
rafa esparza — TSO Hybrid
rafa esparza — TSO Hybrid
rafa esparza

TSO Hybrid

2017

TSO Hybrid brings together adobe, hydrocal, hay, and dye in a compact sculptural form that fuses two historically and culturally distinct building traditions. Handmade during a residency in Marfa, the work casts adobe into the standardized shape of a concrete cinderblock, filling that familiar industrial form with dyed plaster and hay to produce something that is simultaneously vernacular and conceptual. The result is a small but dense object, its surface alive with color and texture, that holds the tension between industrial uniformity and the labor-intensive, earth-based craft practices central to rafa esparza's broader artistic vocabulary. The work emerged from a sustained engagement with the legacy of Donald Judd, whose presence pervades Marfa and whose own practice involved combining dissimilar construction materials, notably cement mortar and adobe brick. Esparza and collaborator Fahler took that precedent as a generative provocation, exploring what it means to conflate discrete building systems rather than simply juxtapose them. By molding adobe into a cinderblock silhouette, they produce a hybrid object that quietly destabilizes assumptions about material hierarchy, permanence, and whose traditions are enshrined within the built environment. At just over eight inches wide and signed by the artist, TSO Hybrid is a work of notable intimacy and conceptual weight. Offered in support of Ballroom Marfa's ongoing mission to commission internationally relevant art and performance that engages directly with community and landscape, the edition connects collectors to a program with a genuine commitment to site-responsive, socially engaged practice. It is an object that rewards close attention, offering in a modest form a serious meditation on labor, materiality, and cultural inheritance.

Medium
Adobe, hydrocal, hay, dye
Overall
Signed
Yes
Location
Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, TX

For Sale — $2000

Start the Discussion

Request access to join the discussion

About this work

rafa esparza, TSO Hybrid, 2017

TSO Hybrid brings together adobe, hydrocal, hay, and dye in a compact sculptural form that fuses two historically and culturally distinct building traditions. Handmade during a residency in Marfa, the work casts adobe into the standardized shape of a concrete cinderblock, filling that familiar industrial form with dyed plaster and hay to produce something that is simultaneously vernacular and conceptual. The result is a small but dense object, its surface alive with color and texture, that holds the tension between industrial uniformity and the labor-intensive, earth-based craft practices central to rafa esparza's broader artistic vocabulary. The work emerged from a sustained engagement with the legacy of Donald Judd, whose presence pervades Marfa and whose own practice involved combining dissimilar construction materials, notably cement mortar and adobe brick. Esparza and collaborator Fahler took that precedent as a generative provocation, exploring what it means to conflate discrete building systems rather than simply juxtapose them. By molding adobe into a cinderblock silhouette, they produce a hybrid object that quietly destabilizes assumptions about material hierarchy, permanence, and whose traditions are enshrined within the built environment. At just over eight inches wide and signed by the artist, TSO Hybrid is a work of notable intimacy and conceptual weight. Offered in support of Ballroom Marfa's ongoing mission to commission internationally relevant art and performance that engages directly with community and landscape, the edition connects collectors to a program with a genuine commitment to site-responsive, socially engaged practice. It is an object that rewards close attention, offering in a modest form a serious meditation on labor, materiality, and cultural inheritance.

Medium
Adobe, hydrocal, hay, dye
Dimensions
overall: 20.3 x 38.1 x 16.5 cm
Year
2017
Signed
Hand-signed by the artist
Seen at
Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, TX

Related themes

Mohn Art Collective

More works by rafa esparza