The brilliant discovery in Barichara of the Mangle Collective and its history of carpenters, art, and land

“They make copies,” someone muttered as she left the workshop. “Copies!” thought María Paula, trying to contain her rage, “copies! What's wrong with them?” The first years of the Colectivo Mangle—the husband and wife team of María Paula Álvarez and Diego Álvarez; their sons are Álvarez Álvarez—were a constant battle against skepticism. No one believed that their wooden furniture, full of futuristic curves, waves that seemed taken from a universe of physical formulas and brought to the mortal world , could come from a workshop in Chapinero . They, for their part, were not overcome by the frustration of the lack of originality in their pieces and continued working in their workshop, convinced that their chairs, bookcases, and tables were special.

They knew it from the beginning.

Diego and María Paula graduated from the Santo Domingo School of Arts and Crafts in 2006 with a certificate of occupational aptitude in the woodworking trade. Their senior project was an exhibition of their furniture in downtown Bogotá. “We weren't part of the art world or galleries; we didn't even know there was such a thing as collecting designer furniture, but we did.”

Talent has a peculiarity: it's so rare that it becomes news. The name of the Mangle collective began to spread by word of mouth, and several artists hired them to develop their own projects; they were the gods of wood. The only ones capable of bending it, turning it into mountains, or making spirals with it. They could turn any idea into reality; they worked with Natalia Castañeda , Saúl Sánchez , Juan Fernando Herrán , and Miler Lagos, among other artists, and developed several interventions at the Nueveochenta Gallery. On one occasion, around 2010, they built a crate to transport a work by Miler Lagos that was so sophisticated—practically a sculpture to house a sculpture—that Lagos's gallery owner, Mexican Enrique Guerrero, wanted to meet them. He went to their workshop in Chapinero and was so enamored with their furniture that he asked them to furnish the stand for ArtBo . And it was a success: they sold out the artists' works and all the furniture, too.

Their reputation as “good carpenters” spread even further, and a New York gallery owner, Alberto Magnan, encouraged them to take the next step: “Exhibit,” he told them, “but I don’t want furniture; I want your work.” And in 2013, at his gallery in Chelsea, they struck their first note: they exhibited several objects that became classics: wooden cables twisted into impossible shapes, hammers with handles that bend like rubber bands… the elements of their workshop were their inspiration; the pieces they created were, in a way, “the dignity of the craft.”

Diego and María Paula have three children, and during the pandemic, they decided to escape Bogotá. They had family in Barichara, and they thought it was the best place to have space and fresh air so they wouldn't have to live cooped up in quarantine. They moved their workshop and stayed, and in the midst of their work and daily life, they discovered a material they hadn't worked with before: earth.

The houses of Barichara are built of earth. It's the public secret of their beauty; the trampled wall is everywhere, packed earth transformed into impassable, indestructible walls as old as the town itself, with a knowledge that dates back to time immemorial. "The masters know where there is redder or lighter earth, they stop at a bend and dig out mounds of earth to build. There is bull's blood earth, pink earth..." earth, earth... the material and the word itself—earth—invaded his mind.

They embraced the material with the same care they show with wood, and their first "earthly" work, We Are Here , at the SGR Gallery (Carrera 24 no. 77-55), is a true statement of authority. The gallery floor is covered with 20,000 earth spheres ; you have to take off your shoes to walk through the work and feel it; to experience the roughness and curves, to enjoy a spectacular architectural fabric. "On opening day," recalls Steven Guberek, the gallery director, "a pile of shoes formed at the entrance. Everyone wanted to walk through it, step on it, feel it."

On the back wall are 23 spheres depicting 11 tones of Barichara's earth, "but there are more," says María Paula. Why did they work on the spheres? The answer is as simple and poetic as the piece itself. Why more? "For the Earth," says Diego.