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NOCTURNAL MAPS TO THINK LATIN AMERICA – COLLABORATIVE EXHIBITION BETWEEN VIGIL GONZALES AND ESPACIO EL DORADO
The exhibition, at the Vigil Gonzales gallery in Valle Sagrado, brings together the work of seven Latin American artists who question the generalizations imposed on the countries and cultures of their region, and address issues such as politics, neoliberalism, and the art market.
The curator, Valentina Gutiérrez Turbay, uses an excerpt from From the Media to the Mediations, by Jesús Martín Barbero, to show that the erroneous homogenization suffered by the continent is installed in the social and consuming mass but that begins with the media and intellectuals.
The heterogeneity of which most of the countries in Latin America are made will undergo a strong process of functionalization. Where the cultural difference is big, unavoidable, originality is displaced and projected on the whole of the Nation. Where the difference is not so “big” as to become national patrimony, it will be “folklorized”, offered as a curiosity to foreigners.
“This characterization of Latin America as a paradisiacal, underdeveloped and banana region has been useful for the local bourgeoisies to make agreements with large multinationals to continue exploiting the soils and the inhabitants, either as cheap labor or as native peoples destined to beautify a postcard." Gutiérrez Turbay postulates, and adds that "This form of relationship between the leaders of the region and the people is closer to feudal relations than to those of a social agreement typical of a modern country"
From this perspective, the works in Mapas nocturnos para pensar América Latina (Nocturnal Maps to Think Latin America) aim to highlight the regional and cultural differences that can be found in Latin America without neglecting the common problem: the view that is had of it from the central points of the West.
In this way, the role of the artist/creator assumes the elementary function of not only expressing but also making its voice and each of its nuances heard. The curator puts it like this: “Contrary to what many people who are not interested in the development of local scenes may believe, Latin American artists make art to position themselves, to be part of the conversation. In a region where large capitals are more interested in buying the next trendy painter in the United States, local artists have the freedom to think and produce for their peers and for those who seek to relate to critical discourses."
With the focus no longer on consumption, the show illuminates Latin American production both to celebrate its artists and to give an account of the different conflicts that are experienced in the continent and that should not be reduced to a single representation.
Artists: Sebastian Calfuqueo, Astrid González, Natalia Iguiñiz, Julieth Morales, Fernando Nureña, José Ruiz Diaz, Karina Skvirsky and Luz Adriana Vera.
Mapas nocturnos para pensar América Latina
Vigil Gonzales and Espacio El Dorado
Until September, 15th
Jr Grau 654 - Urubamba
Valle Sagrado de los Incas, Perú
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