This first collaboration between the two galleries is intended as an opportunity to
offer new experiences and open new spaces for imagination and dialogue between
the two cities, stimulating the exchange of artistic and stylistic conversations
between established and mid-career artists.
The work of SANGREE (Bhu’ja Th’syra I & II, 2020) uses a visual language that
is characterized by intertwining the past with the present, thus allowing them to
navigate through the different layers of art history and popular culture. In the same
vein, Héctor Zamora in Desconcretización (2020) reveals the influence of the old
and new avant-gardes, as well as their affinity for the geometric form. Both artists
recognize the fundamental role of the materials they work with: on the one hand,
ceramics and on the other, lattices, which have been widely accessible throughout
history as part of daily life, and whose aesthetic language has been explored on
multiple occasions.
Taking a parallel approach, and positioning themselves as a strong referent for the
renewal of pre-Hispanic and modern aesthetics, we find the imposing works of
Tezontle (Estela I, 2020) and Pedro Reyes (Spiral Nude, 2019), deliberately placing
themselves in an ambiguous position between the primitive and the contemporary.
Their pieces inspired by different historical aesthetics encompass such complex
themes –political and economic philosophies, as well as bucolic and essentialist
utopias– which are reformulated in order for the viewer to become a participant in
the critical discourses emanating from their works.
For their part, both Gala Porras-Kim (Cola de Palma Monument 3, illuminated
text, 2019) and Wendy Cabrera Rubio (On the India We Learned to Ferment Corn,
2020) draw on the potential of the art object and its function as an epistemological
tool outside its traditional historical context. Undertaking intensive research that
brings together politics, history, and learning processes –and which subsequently
constitutes the backbone of their practice– both artists produce works that reveal
the intricate fabric of historical conditions that gave rise to our conception of the
present. Further expanding the use of past narratives, Jorge Satorre’s work (Piernas,
2020) has been developed as a series of responses to traces that have been
excluded from hegemonic versions of history in various contexts to which the artist
relates, often collaborating with specialists from different fields such as historians,
geologists, writers or other artists.
In the case of Roger White’s painting Infrathin (2017) and Manuela de Laborde’s Parte
de una película fijada en el color de alguna flor (2020), a re-contextualization of the
objects, derived from their observation, is taken as the starting point. Both artists
are interested in generating an image inscribed in a new temporality, experimenting
with colors, sizes and scales, thus evoking a formal restlessness through every day
and familiar objects. Likewise, Jerónimo Elespe (Une Chargone & Mekart, 2016),
through a slow accumulative process of addition and subtraction, spanning months
or even years, presents his paintings as a platform to investigate the very nature of
time and memory. Although differing in the use of technique, these works require the
viewer to pause before them, taking the time to observe their formal construction,
and allowing themselves a moment’s rest in this hyper-accelerated world.
Finally, with an acute sensitivity for the materials used, and often resorting to
unconventional mixtures, the works of ASMA (The Breeder, 2019) and Tomás Díaz
Cedeño (Agua Zarca, 2020) employ organic forms and motifs drawn from nature
–and even fantasy and magical imagery– to evoke mystical, mythological and often
strange qualities in objects that fluctuate between abstraction and figuration.
The Memory We Don’t Recall seeks to establish a dialogue between the subjects
and aesthetics of our history, of our past, and to highlight them through the prism of
contemporary artists of our time.
