It has been a long since my last post, I know... too long! But now there is exciting new material for you too see...
I spent a wonderful Saturday together with Andrea and Alberto, Fabiola, and Thomas in the capital, going to the inauguration of the new edition of the Art Biennial in Guatemala. The Biennial is held in different venues in Zone 1 of Guatemala City (the historic center), the most impressive being the Edifico de Correos. While I was not fully able to perceive the topics proposed by the curators, there were some very powerful individual works. And, it was immensely refreshing to see some contemporary art again, especially in the Guatemalan context.
Have a look!
The first work, folded up fenders.
The floor of this room was covered with tree branches, some arranged to letters to form the word "Quecuch" which in a Mayan dialect apparently means something along the lines of "there is a lot of sound when I walk on dry branches".
This artist arranged copies of birth certificates of indigenous people to form a village of little houses.
A work that I liked very much, but Alberto pointed out that the artist apparently always does the same kind of works. I didn't know his work yet, and it certainly catered to some exoticist fascination with dried up tortillas that I very often see during my workdays, visiting families. The work consisted of dry tortillas (the staple food of most Guatemalans, especially the poor) in black box frames. They were all pierced by a piece of jewelry, such as ear rings, nose and tongue piercings. This type of jewelry is seen in the streets here, worn by young urban Guatemalans. Maybe it is a bit of a simplistic and immediate decontextualization and combination, but since I could make a direct reference to my own experience here, it did prompt me to think about tradition and modernity, poverty and affluence, and identity in Guatemala.
This was my favorite work of the whole exhibition: two hand ploughs facing each other, in the foreground a sickle on a double handle, and in the background another agricultural tool, forming a arc, while some parts of the tools were painted in bright colors. Entering the room there was such a power in this arrangement, making one wait for the moment when the sickle would just pop and take the whole thing with it.
This is Alberto's work. On first sight it looks like one of the precarious houses made from corrugated iron, where many families here in Guatemala live in (and that I see daily during work). Looking more closely, one can see that the house is actually only made out of wooden bars and printed paper.
This is a close up of the print: he actually took scrap iron and printed directly off of it. It creates an amazing effect and the single sheets would stand as an artwork by themselves. I liked it very much.
This work lists the 7 deadly sins in Mayan cosmology, and combines them with pictures of the women of the artist's family. I liked the formal aspect of it and the presentation.
This artist made braille slides of urban situations. A somewhat cool idea. Unfortunately some of the slides got stolen, so the artist was very protective of his work when we got there, telling us not to touch anything.
The guy on this terrible picture, sorry amigos, is actually Francis Alÿs, one of my heroes.
Not the best work, but a good transition to the world outside gallery spaces, and the next work, which is certainly much more interesting.
Looks weird, right? Huge statue in a living room...?
And this is how he did it:
I really liked the idea to give a dead monument no one ever looks at a new context, a life in the living room, and also to bring it down from its pedestal. Or at least the viewers up to the same level: there is no picture of this, but in front, there is another structure viewers can climb, in order to be at the same level than the living room.
And finally some impressions of Guatemala City.
The green bus is part of Transmetro, a new public transport system, while the other buses in the picture represent the old guard.
Thank you Fabiola, Andrea, and Alberto for a great day! And, claro, como siempre, hasta pronto amigos!
