Inspired by the ad hoc construction methods employed in low-income areas throughout Latin America—including the artist’s childhood home in Mexico City, which his parents built one room at a time, dictated by the needs of the family and availability of supplies—Abraham Cruzvillegas is concerned with the idea of autoconstrucción (self-construction). The needbased nature of autoconstrucción is reflected in the recycled and improvised materials that make up Cruzvillegas’s media. Blind self-portrait . . . comprises discarded pieces of paper, such as postcards, envelopes, and napkins, that have been dipped in various blue shades of paint. The grid-like arrangement recontextualizes the materials into abstract configurations alternately evoking buildings, city blocks, clouds, or waterfalls, resulting in a constantly shifting relationship between the disparate scraps of paper, the cohesive image, and the viewer. Cruzvillegas’s practice extends beyond the formal simulation of the process of self-construction. “For me, it leads me to think on the construction of identity,” he has said. “We go through a long, long path to become ourselves. I’m still constructing myself ” (Art21 2016). Blind self-portrait . . . invites others into this act of assembly: following rough templates provided by the artist, those who display the piece are free to determine the number of elements and their configuration. The result is a protean meditation on the ideation of the self as both an individual and collective process, dependent on innate nature as well the social conditions of time and place. jk & cs