“Mirrors of Mexico”exhibition consisting of Julieta Aranda, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Damian Ortegaprominent artists on the international scene, has just opened at Proa.
The project, designed by this institution from La Boca, has as its premise to exhibit, debate and study the monumentality of the works as well as the experiences and thoughts that each of them concentrates. “It reflects different aspects of culture, history, diversity and contemporary perspectives, revealing multiple layers of meaning”as the curatorial text reads.
Juliet Aranda (Mexico, 1975), lives between Berlin and New York, presents a video installation dated 2014-2018 entitled “Stealing one’s own corpse” (a set of support points for an ascent into darkness). It corresponds to a series that forms a sharp reflection on the sensory and conceptual events of the contemporary subject, the result of a personal experience when she was invited to experience a zero-gravity flight on the occasion of the Berlin Biennale in 2014.
There is no doubt that this video installation needs a thorough explanation as her projects challenge the boundaries between subject and object while incorporating chance encounters, self-destruction and social processes. This artist observes the human-earth relationship, altered through the lens of technology, artificial intelligence, space travel and scientific hypotheses.
The viewer, alert or not, remains outside this video installation, which finds no reason for being due to its darkness, in addition to the fact that almost all the elements are related to death, torture, putrefaction, and the inexorable decomposition of living beings.
The work of Abraham Cruzvillegas (Mexico, 1968) arises from the collaboration between the artist and the visit to the Tenaris factory in Veracruz to explore the materials used in the steel industry. Cruzvillegas He let the attendees choose, bring and provide the objects considered appropriate for the installation “Pending self-portrait contemplating the impressive ballet of industrial transformation” It is an assembly of pipes, metals, plastics, ephemeral monuments made of found and unused materials that manifests itself “as a form of active resistance against economic inequality and state oppression.”
This sculpture constitutes a declaration of principles since it was made “longing little for the fantasy of the promise of belonging to the “modern” universe”speculating on the possible pleasure of idealizing a model full of contradictions.” It is accompanied by five large-format canvases made with mops with which he drew the figures of two mandrills, female and male, since as a caricaturist he has drawn monkeys since 1980.
In the same room is exhibited “Blind self-portrait with a black head envying the ovenbird’s house, flying with a thrush”acrylic paint on newspaper clippings, letters, photos, tickets, vouchers, postcards, napkins, in a total of 784 elements, which make up a large frieze.
He has distinguished himself as a professor, lecturer, and researcher at the Smithsonian Institute, Malmo Art Academy, Ruskin College, Oxford, New York University, Tate Modern, and Guggenheim Museum, among other prestigious international institutions. He is an accumulator of diverse materials and his desire is to transform objects into themselves and strip them of the “burden of meaning.”
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Mexico, 1967) uses robotic lights, computerized surveillance, telematic networks among other multimedia tools that challenge the viewer to explore sensitive issues such as control and power relations in contemporary society. “Voice matrix” Presented at Proa, it is an installation that is activated when the participant speaks through an intercom that makes their voice visible through flashes of light.
A unique flickering pattern is stored as a loop in the first light of the series, illuminating the entire work. Each new recording pushes the previous ones down one position and gradually the sound of the previous 882 recordings can be heard. A participatory, sensitive work that provokes surprise when heard in these luminous drawings.
In the words of the artist “We live in a globalized society where the common language is technology, but I find it problematic that technological art is the future. I hate it when someone says that artificial intelligence will give us infinite possibilities.At the age of 17, he moved to Montreal, Canada to study Physics and Chemistry at Concordia University.
In 2007, he was the first artist to represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale. His large-scale participatory art installations transform public spaces and in 2019 he presented “Border Tunes”, designed to interconnect cities such as El Paso, Texas, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, which brought together thousands of people on both sides of the border between the United States and Mexico. His works are part of the collections of MoMA, Guggenheim, Reina Sofía and he recently presented “Common Measures”, a solo exhibition at Pace (New York). A seductive, poetic and emotional work.
This exhibition completes the work of Damian Ortega (Mexico, 1967) who also worked as a political cartoonist in his early days . “Cosmic Thing” This is one of his best-known installations. It is a deconstruction and fragmentation, words from the artistic vocabulary, a surgical dissection of the famous “beetle”, a 1998 Volkswagen model that became the taxi of the Federal District.
According to experts, the artist reflects on globalization, industry, and criticizes transnational companies and assembly in Mexico using cheap labor. Along with this gigantic “dissection” are the preparatory sketches and videos in Proa’s room 2.
Ortega He was part of the Taller de los Viernes between 1987 and 1992 with other artists, including Gabriel Orozco (Veracruz, 1962), who has become one of the most successful contemporary artists in the world and whose modified Citroen DS 19 we remember, which we have seen at some Venice biennials. Ortega He is a sculptor who creates performances, installations, videos and photographs. For him, the work of art is always an action, an event. Winner of numerous awards, including the Hugo Boss, a research fellow at the Smithsonian Institute, he has also completed several residencies in Berlin.
(Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1929. Until the end of August. Tuesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.)
Source: Ambito
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