Karlo Andrei Ibarra – “Fractured Atlas”

Reception: March  26th, 2022

_VIGILGONZALES Cusco - Pampa del Castillo 455, Cusco

Vigil Gonzales is pleased to present Fractured Atlas, the first solo exhibition by Puerto Rican artist Karlo Andrei Ibarra at the gallery.

It can be said that Latin America has developed over time, powerful processes of cultural readjustment and reinvention in response to the various manifestations of neocolonialism that have been imposed 

In the last century, the region has suffered countless blows to constitutional order, civil wars, external interventionism and unregulated exploitation of basic resources. In counter-demonstration to these phenomena, forms of resistance have been formed that have served to affirm visions of reality and a reformulation of our historical memory.

Since 2005, Puerto Rican artist Karlo Andrei Ibarra has been interested in reviewing aspects of our political history. In this new series Mapas de piel, the artist is interested in the idea of the map as a membrane that constantly mutates. After many years of research he puts the idea of the map as a primary entity and is dedicated to recreate maps of characteristic territories such as Peru, Lima, Cusco among others. Through this exercise Ibarra recounts the changes to which our region is subjected from a political, environmental and economic perspective.

This series of collages and cartographies are meticulously constructed from the collection of layers of paint which are extracted from colonial structures and buildings in constant transformation and change in the city of San Juan. Ibarra uses these skins from his personal gaze to animate a flexible geography from aspects such as memory as a fundamental basis for understanding our past, as well as our present.

In his piece entitled Looting, which is part of the exhibition, a pair of concrete military boots tread on a motionless map of Latin America. With this piece the artist makes clear reference to the historical and political weight of interventionism and the exploitation of natural and human resources that persist in the collective imaginary and in everyday practice.

Finally, in his in-situ installation Jardín Eterno, the artist has randomly dropped coca leaves printed with the word resist, which can be associated with the action of breathing at a great height from which one also has a good visual perspective, but also as its title mentions, Jardín Eterno recalls the resistances of communities as a result of cultivation through years of struggle and resistance.