(Maracaibo, February 18th, 2010)--Six video works of art made by six different Latin American artists are part of the show Acciones disolventes, Videoarte latinoamericano, the exhibition that will be launched by the Centro de Arte de Maracaibo Lía Bermúdez (CAMLB), and the Fundación Cisneros, on Sunday, February 21.
The display, which was at the Centro Cultural Chacao in Caracas and the Museo de Arte Moderno Jesús Soto in Ciudad Bolivar last year, pays tribute to Sofia Imber, whose Art in Video exhibition in 1975 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas was the first video exhibition in Venezuela. Her work served as inspiration for a group of Venezuelan artists who later began working in that format.
Until Sunday, April 25th, Acciones disolventes, Videoarte latinoamericano will provide the public the opportunity to see a set of original pieces from creators who outlined the concept of the exhibition and, in the view of Carlos Palacios, curator of the exhibition, “have a starting point in the tradition of drawing, and this works as a matrix for the momentum of the moving image”.
The works of the exhibit are Manimal, of the Mexican artist Carlos Amorales; La Yola of the Puerto Rican José (Tony) Cruz; Luna of the Colombian Mateo López; Solo de Tambor of the argentinian Liliana Porter; 1.2dm003 ‘Eleutherodactylus coqui’ of the Venezuelan Magdalena Fernández; and Letter on the Blind, for the Use of Those Who See of the Venezuelan Javier Téllez,.
To mark the opening of this exhibition in Maracaibo, the artist Magdalena Fernandez will give a speech as special guest open to the public about the passage of the “Three Dimensions to Video” on Monday February 22 at 10:00 am in the Audiovisual room of CAMLB.
Acciones disolventes, Videoarte latinoamericano, will be open from Sunday February 21 to Sunday April 25, 2010. The CAMLB is open from Monday to Saturday between 9:30 am and 6:00 pm, and Sundays from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.
Six videos, six authors
According to Carlos Palacios, “Acciones disolventes seeks to motivate different readings of the show starting with the expositive coincidence of its projections (…) in some cases analogies can be established among them, whereas in others the emphasis will be on the proposal itself.
In this respect, Palacios refers to the fact that the selected artists for this exhibition have experience in drawing, and that the origin of cinema is in a sequence of drawings in motion.
In the video Manimal, by the Mexican Carlos Amorales, we can see the silhouettes of herds of wolves and flocks of ravens in a desolate world, where these animals, traditionally associated with terror and prey, are the only survivors.
Opposite this terrible post-human scene – continues Palacios – is the Puerto Rican Jose (Tony) Cruz exhibits a work of great impact named the Yola (La Yola), named for boats used by Dominican immigrants to reach Puerto Rico. The artist encourages a nourished and sweet set of drawings that represent a handcrafted fishing boat anchored in a calm and nonexistent sea.
From the same tradition of the figurative drawing, the Colombian Mateo Lopez presents Luna (Moon), a video in which he uses a graphite pencil on a golf ball to represent the moon in movement with its craters, depths and particularities. Meanwhile in synch with this work, the Argentinean artist Liliana Porter projects Solo de Tambor (Drum solo), where a universe of situations and social behaviors are shown, which reflect our own behavior through the small toys of the artist.
On the other hand, the Venezuelan artist Magdalena Fernandez presents the video 1.2dm003 ‘Eleutherodactylus coqui’ (of the series of Mobile Drawings), where she subverts the purity of the line of conventional geometric forms in space, from a multitude of frogs´ sounds in Caracas at night. In this piece, the “drawing” that is projected on the wall is altered by the varied pace of the croaks of the frogs, generating different geometric permutations. The curator establishes possible parallelisms between this video and that of Jose (Tony) Cruz, La Yola, since in both “the idea of the location has a specific weight”.
The last video of the exhibition is the video Letter on the Blind, For the Use of Those Who See, of the Venezuelan Javier Tellez, about the meeting of six blind people and an elephant. The spectator, as a person who can see, is only able to partially understand the experience of a blind person, and how he or she perceives an elephant and how he or she can understand it from a purely tactile perspective. This work coincides with that of Magdalena Fernandez “with the demand of other corporal senses, as is the case of the ear in Fernandez’s video …” concludes Palacios
About the Fundación Centro de Arte de Maracaibo Lía Bermúdez
The Fundación Centro de Arte de Maracaibo Lía Bermúdez is sponsored by the regional government, and its main purpose is to develop projects and programs for the research, preservation and dissemination of the cultural heritage of the Venezuelan state of Zulia. the main goal of the Fundación, which focuses on the Zulia region, is to disseminate creative processes, artistic values, science and technology The natural heritage of Zulia includes environmental education, which specifically targets the rescue of Lake Maracaibo, the Malecón and all the entire area comprising the regional Banks of the estuary.
About the Fundación Cisneros
The Fundación Cisneros is a private, non-profit institution established by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Gustavo Cisneros, and currently led by Adriana Cisneros de Griffin, in order to strengthen the social fabric, promote freedom of expression and democratic thought, encourage economic progress and strengthen understanding among Latin American nations. Its mission is to improve education in Latin America while promoting global awareness about the region's contributions to world culture.