Mondongo

In Spanish, the word “mondongo” means tripe, or the lining of a cow’s stomach. The word “Mondongo” is also a stew we love, and we are like three witches stirring it up in a cauldron: revolving and expecting and trying and experimenting; attempting to alchemize, to distill, and ooze all the chaos, and the all possible “all-ness” in it . . .

— Mondongo, 2008 (from the Mondongo Manifesto)

Mondongo are an Argentinian art collective consisting of Juliana Laffitte, Manuel Mendanha and Agustina Picasso, who founded Mondongo 1999, are not only partial to the stew, but make their work from a „cauldron“ of ingredients: „ We've used a huge variety of materials in our art, depending on what best reinforces the concept oft he work,“ says Manuel Mendanha, 34. „It’s always a process of experimentation until we finish it. We’ll keep experimenting with materials‘ til death comes!“ 

In Mondongo’s world all is up for deconstructive terrorism—the miserable ambitions of the ego, social hypocrisy, the slight satisfactions of sex, what’s left of the family, the murderous ideology of a victim satiated world.

The amount of work Mondongo put into each piece is extensive, and both intricate and beautiful. They are literally paintings without paint—using such materials as thread, beads, plasticine, cookies, and glitter, to name of few. Production is slow and deliberate as the material and concept are intricately jelled: the materials used as metaphorical adjuncts to the concepts.

Materials list from previous works by Argentinean artist collective, MONDONGO: fake pearls, matches, studs on leather, jawbreakers, beads, colored mirrors, thread, wax, Oreo cookies, biscuits, Ritz crackers, hair, feathers, resin, and meat. With their diverse medium, Mondongo creates visually flirtatious and intellectually intense imagery. Their subject matter is rampant—pornographic pictures downloaded from the Internet and recreated with cookies and crackers, female nudes with taxidermic cat heads, a Plasticine Little Red Riding Hood, and a meat series inspired by Rembrandt’s “A Woman Bathing in a Stream.”