Entre Irse y Quedarse

 

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.
All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.
The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theatre of reflections.
I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.

 

-Octavio Paz, 1987.

 

 

Entre Irse y Quedarse (Between Going and Staying) is a group exhibition displaying a micro sample of five Mexican artists connected by their roots, regardless of their geographical context. The title of the exhibition is taken from one of the late Mexican poet Octavio Paz poems, where he depicts the relationship of time through ephemeral and symbolic concepts that relate to the artists approach unto their expressions and the embodiment of time through the different techniques/themes used by them.

 

The works in the exhibition are tied together by the materiality of traditional crafts in Mexico but play with our understanding of traditional themes and symbolisms, production techniques and materials by merging them into a contemporary visual expression and showing alternative visions of these processes like weaving, hammered metals, ceramics and painting. The insertion of these techniques into the scope of contemporary art, broadens the understanding of contemporary expressions along with the function of the arts in our time.

 

Lorena Ancona uses ceramic through the historiography of Mesoamerican dyes, pigments, natural materials and places while working with a particular interest in the archaeological contexts and technological evidences of a synthetic organo-mineral (clay) pigment known as Mayan Blue.

 

ektor garcia approaches sculptural installation through wide-ranging experiments with craft techniques and materials. For this exhibition he developed a crocheted leather thread mesh resembling a portal, as defined by the artist himself.

 

Rodrigo Hernández presents a work from a series of hand-hammered brass panels that portray gestures of intimacy. In this particular work, he depicts a photograph taken by Anni Albers from 1948 that serves as a document of her, and her husband Josef Alber’s, to show the deep they had engagement with pre-Columbian American art, and as a fragmentary sample of their large collection of ancient artworks from the region, especially from Mexico.

 

Ernesto Solana shows a set of laser cut metallic silhouettes drawing inspiration from pre-Hispanic clay "stamps” which appeared in different pre-colonial cities across Mexico. They usually depict geometric designs, flora and fauna, and they have been reimagined and modified to create a composition which is activated by different elements in environment.

 

Astrid Terrazas re-writes imaginary worlds and her narratives reflect ancestral folklore, lived experiences, and unearthly transfigurations. They are stories that push personal and communal trauma towards tangible healing. She uses recurring motifs as artifacts of protection, meant to cast a safety spell upon anyone who encounters them.

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By Mario Navarro 

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