Alberto Borea, Florencia Ecudero, Ricardo Gonzalez, Claudia Joscowicz, Irvin Morazan, Meyer Vaisman, Carlos Vela-Prado, Manuela Viera-Gallo
From September 15 to October 22.
At Asya Geisberg Gallery
Curated by Guillermo Creus
Inspired by the lyrical, political and metaphorical themes in the writing of Roberto Bolaño as well as from his imaginative virtuosity,this exhibition conceptually builds a parallel between the Chilean writer’s characters and motifs and the works of eight contemporary Latin American artists. Also drawing parallels between these artists and Bolaño’s persona as a nomadic writer, Salvajes intends to be Latin American in its essence, and universal in its language.
The title of the exhibition - Salvajes – savages - refers to one of Bolaño’s most important novels, Los detectives salvajes, and to the stereotypical image of Latin Americans as the uncivilized. We are savages because of the long history of violence, deprivation, and exploitation that the continent has experienced since its origins, more perceptible through the recent history of dictatorships and colonial, cultural and economic policies suffered right and left, north and south, in the last decades.
Salvajes refers also to the perception of the role of the artist in society, regardless of their origin. They are non-conformist members in a supposedly well-adjusted and functioning system that doesn’t fully includes them. In this case being a savage becomes a tool for survival in a world that demands aggressive energy to fight uncertainty and anxiety, and artists tend to carry those contradictions in their nature: wild beasts and creators of beauty. The artist’s struggle against the imperative to create and the ever-gnawing and sometimes maddening demand to make art are certainly some of Bolaño’s larger subjects.
As in much of the Latin-American author’s oeuvre, the artists in this exhibition deal with personal history, popular culture and individual journeys. And as in the writer’s work, there is a notion of chaos and emptiness, and indirectly to the darkness of Latin-American youth and the wittiness that comes from their rebellious cultural history. The works in this exhibition deal with social and political issues by either bringing them to the forefront or by leaving them in the background as nuances in the overall concept. Nevertheless they speak about and find inspiration in their place “of origin”.
Just as Bolaño found ways to make the political integral to his novels without ever making them into political novels, these artists, without being explicitly political, maintain a personal and firm connection with the political. They do so by referencing historical facts and characters, by drawing from personal memory to devise theories and practices that reference a general political stance, or by transforming personal experiences and premises.
“How do you recognize a work of art? How can it be kept apart, even if only for a moment, from its critics, commentators, its indefatigable plagiarists, its defacers and its final destiny in solitude?” Bolaño asks in one essay from the 2004 book Entre Paréntesis. And then he goes on to answer: “Simple - just translate it.” These works bring to a New York audience a seamless translation of their Latin American origins into a universal, contemporary and experimental visual language.
Guillermo Creus, New York Fall 2011
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