The Saúl Pereyra space [Atelier], founded by the artist of the same name two years ago in Cholula, Puebla, holds its first international exhibition. The collective exhibition Colombia in Mexico [Emplazamientos] brings together 82 works, including painting, installation, drawing and short film, by seven artists belonging to Cavilantes Experimentaciones Discursivas 1993. This group was founded in 2023 by the artist María Cecilia Galindo-Oñate (Bogotá, 1966), with artists who were celebrating three decades of having graduated from the Faculty of Arts of the National University, Bogotá headquarters.
Juan Carlos Pachón (Bogotá, 1964), whose work is included in the exhibition, summarizes the situation like this: “I want to put a topic on the table, although I am not very sure if it is a shared feeling or an expression of my personal marginalizations. We belong to a generation that seemed very promising and called to replace the ‘sacred cows’ of Colombian art and the subsequent generation (Miguel Ángel Rojas and Doris Salcedo, among others).
When we were about to enter the art circuit with force, everything became rarefied and the spaces were now for the very young. For me, what unites us is a sense of resistance in the face of oblivion, in the face of the ghost of failure, in the face of marginalization. Thus we find ourselves making detours, not finding each other for years. What has united us is the stubbornness to continue creating or, at least, trying to create.
Pereyra carries out a project that stems from his interest, above all, in promoting emerging artists who produce and live in the city of Puebla, but also Mexican creators who have a consolidated career, as well as foreign colleagues who wish to exhibit their work locally. .
Upon meeting Galindo-Oñate in Mexico and talking about their respective projects, We had this convergence of ideas in which I was interested in showing artists who generally do not exhibit their work in museums or relevant places, but rather go off the map or are on the periphery of the center of art, whether international or national.
Pereyra said to The Conference Thus was born the gallery’s sixth curatorial project, which is also part of the third edition of the Art Workshop, Contemporary
, which consists of making current art practices visible. The previous ones were with emerging artists from Puebla and the first with artists from Oaxaca.
Apart from Pachón and Galindo-Oñate, Asdrúbal Medina Galíndez (Arauca, 1963), Gabriela Pacific (Santa María Magdalena, 1961), Ivar José Carantón (Chiquinquirá Boyacá, 1965), Carlos Cuéllar González (Bogotá, 1967) and Katia Ariza Bonilla exhibit. (Bogotá, 1986).
Pereyra, in his capacity as curator, divided Colombia in Mexico [Emplazamientos] in three thematic cores: Landscape, Portrait y Death what, somehow they are linked
, despite the fact that each person approaches the issues from different discourses. In the section LandscapeFor example, Carantón builds pictorial works based on his research on the moors of Cundinamarca and Boyacá, natural water factories with scrub-type vegetation, in order to call for their preservation.
In your installation Time zones, Galindo-Oñate refers to the time that a painter invests in making a work, which harmonizes and contrasts between color decisions, and represents the 93 days invested to make the 10 canvases with figures of ferns painted in oil. Pacific builds a landscape titled Estatemade of 45 watercolor pieces that touch on the theme of migration based on her own story of being Colombian with Italian roots.
In section PortraitCuéllar González, whose work is rather self-referential, addresses the issue of her sexual identity, while Ariza Bonilla presents paintings of women and symbolism that blend with nature, objects and animals.
Finally, at the core DeathMedina Galíndez, filmmaker, painter and playwright, presents the nine-minute short film Before I escapein which he takes up Juan Rulfo’s argument, the dead tell our story
. His work is also influenced by the magical realism of boom Latin American, mainly from Colombia.
De Pachón, currently based in Texas, is the painting Ghost-Park, alluding to a tragedy that happened in the Guaviare area, where people died due to a bombing. In his work he uses elements from the painting Guernica, by Pablo Picasso, to establish a dialogue with similar events.
The exhibition Colombia in Mexico [Emplazamientos] It will be inaugurated this Saturday at 5 p.m. in Lomas de Angelópolis, Interplaza, interamericano boulevard s/n, upper floor, San Andrés Cholula, and will remain until June 4.