MARTE Contemporary

Mesoparasitio

2011-07-07T14:13:00.005-04:00

Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE)

MARTE Contemporáneo

Presents:

“Mesoparasitio” by Patricia Villalobos

July 21^st through September 25^th, 2011

Mesoparasitio <13 ° 41’ 33”N 89°14’30”W> is part of a series of onsite installations that invade the exhibit space with multiple elements adhered to the walls. The title combines two words: mesoparasite and site. The first word refers to the type of parasite that lives partially embedded in its host or in between two spaces. The second one makes reference to the action of surrounding or beseeching. The title also points out to the general coordinates for the Museum of Art of El Salvador as the exhibiting space, simultaneously functioning as the host to these camouflaged elements.

The art installation consists of hundreds of polystyrene sculptures and an audio composition. The sculptures make reference to outbreaks or rashes of different sizes and forms; some hybrid and unsual and others more familiar. The audio is composed of environmental and digital sound recordings - its origin oscillates between abstraction and representative sounds such as shots, helicopters, etc., that have been altered to create a contemplative space, along with the sculptures. The piece, thus, moves in between the interior and exterior, the unusual and the familiar, the visible and the invisible.

This art piece examines different situations and elements that appear to be harmless but are actually not; empowered-subordinate relationships, as well as latent motion systems that go unnoticed, and that gradually transform a whole entity. To a certain extent, the walls turn into the infection or contamination sites, where the concept of the noxious and besieged agents becomes abstracted and questioned. The sculptures have been arranged and grouped in a way that they reflect the current global conflict patterns; it suggests a continual state of transition, malleability and constant movement, echoing our contemporary condition.

Patricia Villalobos Echeverria

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Patricia Villalobos Echeverria was born in Tennessee, from Salvadorian parents; raised in Managua, Nicaragua. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisiana (1988) and her masters at the University of West Virginia (1990).

Recent individual exhibits include Outbreak at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh (2010); Aguasmalas (Blackwaters) at MediaNoche, New York (2008); Aflujo-Afflux at Artist Image Resource, Pisttsburgh and Laura Mesaros Gallery, Morgantown, West Virginia (2006); Alamar (Asea) at PROYECTO’ACE, Buenos Aires (2006) and Hoverings at Artist Image Resource, Pittsburgh.

Her work has been included in several exhibitions, some of which are: the VII Biennial of Visual Arts of Central America in Managua (2010): I International Triennial of the Caribbean (2010); IV Splitgraphic Biennale, Split, Croatia (2009) ; Gestures 13 at the Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh (2009); Transfer Lounge of Forge Contemporary Art, Valencia and SPACE Gallery, Pittsburgh (2009); Ecological Havoc at the Universidad Centro Americana-UCA-Managua (2009), Imprint 2008 : International Triennial of Graphic Arts, Warsaw, and the 3rd International Artist's Book Biennial, Alexandria, Egypt (2008).

The hybrid practice of engraving, photography, video, multiples and an installation that is developed by the artist explores reproducible forms of representation that alter our notions of singularity. Her art installations play with the tension between the three-dimensionality of the sculpture and the architecture, and at the same time, explore the ephemeral nature of the video and the sound. Her work examines power and dependency relationships through the sculptures that invade the architectural space, just as in videos that position the body within a political and transnational context. In this way, her work questions our sense of stability and how time can appear to stop when one enters or exists spaces in state of fluctuation – some may be geographical, others virtual, but they all point towards a concurrent state of dissolution (dissociation) and hyper-incarnation.

The MARTE Contemporary program is sponsored by Mario Cáder-Frech and the MARTE Contemporary Committee.

Coca-colonized

2011-01-28T17:04:00.008-05:00

Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE)

MARTE Contemporáneo

Presents:

“Coca-colonized”

May 5th through July 3rd, 2011

San Salvador, January, 2010: The Art Museum of El Salvador (MARTE) is pleased to announce the opening of Coca-colonized, curated by South African born, USA-based curator Claire Breukel. Coca-colonized—a contemporary multimedia exhibition originated at Brotkunsthalle, Vienna—launches at the MARTE Museum in San Salvador in May 2011. The exhibition features nine artists selected from South- and Central America and Africa whose work responds to what it means to live and work in regions ‘beneath‘ their first world counterparts, specifically North America and Europe. Furthermore, Coca-colonized looks at the influence of mass media that has, through generations, integrated with local culture to create a multilayered and empowered new ‘third identity’.

Coca-colonized features a widespread representation of perspectives including Anton Kannemeyer (South Africa), Peterson Kamwathi Waweru (Kenya), Baudouin Mouanda (Congo), Cameron Platter (South Africa), María José Arjona (Colombia), Simón Vega (El Salvador), Omar Obdulio (Puerto Rico), Reynier Leyva-Novo (Cuba) and Emilio Chapela Perez (Mexico). Through site-specific installation, video, painting, design, sculpture and performance, the exhibition responds to the ideology that the influence of a mass culture on another, what is termed ‘developing‘ region, implies an absolute relationship between the influencer and the impressionable. This exhibition questions this relationship (neither to prove or disprove) in an attempt to provide evidence of how mass cultural influence has been absorbed, reinterpreted and at times positively rejuvenated within these regions.

Often out of necessity these artists create work that is outside of formal spaces, bringing it closer to a public audience and invariably making their work more culturally and socially interactive.

“I believe that artists are agents of cultural preemption responding to and reflecting social and cultural truths” says curator Claire Breukel. “The showing of Coca-colonized in the museum in El Salvador is especially prolific as it places the exhibition in the context of a formal space as well as a region from where the exhibition concept originated.”

The Art Museum of El Salvador (MARTE) is a private, non- profit institution founded in May 2003. Since its establishment it has become a point of reference for culture and the visual arts in Central America. Along with a permanent exhibition of a sample of Salvadoran art, MARTE hosts rotating exhibits of universally renowned masters, as well as contemporary exhibitions aimed at promoting new artistic expression. MARTE Contemporary is a movement of young enthusiasts, artists, and collectors aimed at supporting the contemporary arts program at the Museum. This program includes interventions, lectures, collection, cultural exchanges and internships aimed at challenging existing barriers that contemporary art faces in the traditional Salvadoran culture.

In order to showcase the work of contemporary and emerging artists, the MARTE Contemporáneo program fosters dialogues between Salvadorian and international practitioners. It also offers the public the opportunity to appreciate new artistic trends and aesthetic proposals. This can include exhibitions in one of the halls of the building and in designated spaces, as well as other activities organized by the Museum and the MARTE Contemporáneo committee, which supports and develops the schedule and agenda of the program.

“The exhibition Coca-colonized by Claire Breukel is particularly interesting because it gathers a group of artists that are linked through their interpretation of a current topic, specifically the cultural impact of industrialized and hegemonic societies in developing countries,” says Rafael Alas Programming Director of MARTE. “This dialogue between selected artists in Africa and Latin America, who share their views and experiences of the relationship between these societies, highlights the influences and the cultural “permeability” of groups which share an apparent subordination to these influences, regardless of distance or geographic location.”

Breukel first visited MARTE Museum in 2008 on a curatorial trip sponsored by Miami collector Mario Cader-Frech. During her 35 studio visits, Breukel met San Salvadorian artist Simón Vega who was later invited to create a site-specific installation for the Vienna exhibition and who will create a new piece for the MARTE museum showing. Coca-colonized is accompanied by a color catalogue translated into Spanish.

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This exhibition is made possible by Marte Contemporary, Mario Cader Frech, Galerie Ernst Hilger and Hilger BrotKunsthalle, in collaboration with Michael Stevenson Gallery, South Africa; EDS gallery, Mexico, Anita Beckers gallery, Germany, Whatiftheworld Gallery, South Africa and Afrique in Visu.

*The term coca-colonization is used to describe cases where a country's indigenous culture is eroded by a corporate mass-culture, usually from a powerful, industrialized country. This is more metaphorical usage as people need not move, to the colonized country; only cultural signals, symbols, forms of entertainment, and values need to move to the colonized country. (Wikipedia)

Open publication - Free publishing

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

COUNTERS - Abby Manock

2010-08-19T18:43:00.002-04:00

Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE)

MARTE Contemporáneo

Presents:

“COUNTERS”

By Abby Manock

October 14^th through December 12, 2010

“Counters” (3 min. 15 sec. video, 2009) proposes a research about the subjectivity of value and exchange through a hypnotic seduction sequence, production, modification, transportation and the subversive as the dreamy sound of the "5 count soundtrack. "

Since its inception at Gallery Diet, in January 2009, “Counters” has traveled to various places in New York, Los Angeles, Maine, and Connecticut and internationally to Liverpool, England; Yokohama, Japan, and now, MARTE.

Every time the video is shown, Manock will choose a different scene to expand off the screen, building a new sculptural space. Each scene is created with the various themes, keeping the space of the exhibit in mind. By disassembling the original stage material and the modular parts of new installations, past sculptural elements are reinvented for the new environment of each exhibition.

Countercrop, at MARTE, is an extension of the "Orchard” scene; the first scene in the original video. In this embodiment, the viewer is invited to enter into the Manock world - a world that is extremely specific in the order of color. Through its exploration of the environment, each viewer becomes a character in the aesthetic world of the artist; "every person counts.”

Performance by TM Sisters

2010-07-14T12:46:00.011-04:00

Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE)

MARTE Contemporáneo

Presents:

"Things Will End Before They Start"

By TM Sisters

Thursday, August 12^th, 2010 @ 5:30PM

Monica and Tasha López de Victoria, 28 and 26 years of age respectively, best known as the TM Sisters, are shining Miami siblings that have been artistically enthused since very young. Their parents home-schooled them and they grew up immersed in discussions regarding profound topics such as relationships, conduct, and creativity, which undoubtedly, triggered their ability to produce great multimedia and interactive art pieces.

The Sisters’ works have been presented in various renowned international exhibits, such as “Uncertain States of America: American Art in the 3^rd Millennium” curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Daniel Birnbaum, and Gunnar B. Kvaran; the 2^nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, and in PERFORMA 07. Plus, their pieces have also been published in L’Officiel Magazine, The Guardian, NY Times, Vogue Italia and other well-known publications.

As part of the MARTE Contemporary Program, the Museum of Art in El Salvador is pleased to invite art enthusiasts to this one of a kind performance by the TM Sisters: "Things Will End Before They Start", that will be held on Thursday, August 12^th at 5:30pm. The presentation is a short video performance where the TM Sisters are the live characters in a paper cut out animation. The piece is about how one must close chapters of running life to make space for the new, bright, and exciting potential.

Photos: Digital video performance in "Uncertain States of America; American Art in the 3rd Millennium",

Serpentine Gallery, London. 2006. photo (c) by Declan O'Neill

OPTIC NERVE – MOCA North Miami

2010-07-08T17:01:00.009-04:00

Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE)

MARTE Contemporáneo

Presents:

OPTIC NERVE

July 1^st through August 29^th, 2010

Optic Nerve is a very popular festival organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami - MOCA. This annual event presents videos and short films created by some of the most innovative and emerging artists from the South Florida area, which are selected through an open call for proposals. These proposals are, then, reviewed by a jury of professionals specialized in art and films; the selected videos are displayed, each year, at this museum. One of the videos presented in each issue is acquired by the MOCA, for its permanent collection, through funds provided by the coffee company Starbucks.

In this sample of our MARTE Contemporary program, and thanks to the collaboration of the MOCA, the works of the following artists were shown: Towbridge Kyle, Jiae Hwang, Phillip Estlund, Jen Stark and TM Sisters (Natasha and Monica Lopez de Victoria). Their videos were selected for 2005 and 2009 Optic Nerve issues.

The Museum of Contemporary Art - North Miami

Known as the museum "where the new art is discovered," MOCA is internationally recognized as an institution that promotes the identification of new trends and directions in contemporary art. The museum plans and implements most of its exhibitions, and it presents an exciting range of emerging and established artists. Visitors from around the world are guided to be placed in its permanent collection that reflects the most important developments of contemporary art. MOCA has a continuous program of lectures by renowned artists and critics, film screenings, concerts and art performances. Plus, it is an institution that has attracted the attention of the American public for the originality of its educational programs, which have enabled the accessibility to the contemporary art that is enjoyed by people of all ages.

Semántica - April 15th to June 13th 2010

2010-04-30T17:12:00.004-04:00

Semántica

Museo de Arte El Salvador

MARTE Contemporáneo Program

April 15th to June 13th 2010

Semántica is a multinational collective project involving emerging/contemporary artists from Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, the United States and Mexico. This exhibit originates as an idea from a conversation between six artist friends, in October 2008. The group came up with an investigative proposal that would attempt to find out if a multinational art exhibit could do without a curator, high production costs and burocratic paperwork regarding exports and imports of art as a good.

This proposal consists in creating an artist selection chain in which each artist, from an initial list, would choose the next individual, and this person would select a third individual. Each participant is given an identical blank book that he/she will work on. There are no rules to this game, or any limitations, and each artist can determine what his/her book contains or how his/her book is manipulated. These books were completed in September 2009 and started their journey around various countries, native to the artists, in April 2010.

Semántica interprets the concept of “the artist’s book” from 18 different perspectives. For some of the participating artists, this is their first artistic book; meanwhile, for others, this is one of the many art books they’ve created throughout their artistic life. The exhibit portrays books that have turned into diaries revealing the daily life of the artists, and others that have been transformed into art objects. Even if artists are strangers between themselves, they will come together through an intimate dialogue that leads to a collaboration representing the similarities and differences between the participating countries.

Semántica questions the separation that innovative media technology creates between the creator and his/her work of art, in this way, erasing implicit rules that separate the public from its experience at a conventional art gallery. As a consequence, this exhibit makes use of the traditional medium – “the artist’s book” – to express the need that is still present in various artists: to maintain a direct contact with the creation. The books are tangible objects with which the participants coexist for numerous months; turning them into valuable objects. This significance and worthiness of the object is what makes the artist not want the public to come into contact with the creation. Then again, Semántica is complete, as a work of art, only when the public, does actually, come into contact with the books. The public stops being a mere spectator to convert him/herself into an active participant of this sensorial experience.

Ironically, the exhibit takes advantage of the same media it questions in order to convert itself in a reality. All the communication between the participants takes place through digital media that shortens the distance, frontiers and political complications between countries. However, this first exhibit is still affected by shipping complications and the financial limitations some of the artists face. As a consequence, 6 books that were intervened by the participants from the Habana, Cuba, are still there; we certainly hope that they can be present in the upcoming exhibit.

Ana Urquilla

General Coordinator

Semántica

MARTE-C E-book by Cre8tive Juice Group

2010-02-16T16:05:00.001-05:00

MARTE-C PROJECT - "INTIMARIO” (Exhibition - Hocus Pocus 2008 Winners) - May 28th – GALERÍA 1 2 3

2010-02-16T15:52:00.002-05:00

INTIMARIO 1 - "Papel Toalla" (wallpaper type) - Alexia Miranda - Photo - courtesy of Dalia Chevez

INTIMARIO 2 - "Instalación" (Collage of intervened pictures and objects) - Simón Vega.

INTIMARIO 3 -"Cortina de Protección" (Domestic curtain installation, intervened with knitted hair) - Alexia Miranda

INTIMARIO 4 -"Tropical Inn" (Installation and model made with a mix of materials) - Simon Vega

INTIMARIO 5 - JAIME IZAGUIRRE

INTIMARIO 8 - Serie Domestícame (cup cakes and coffee filters intervened with pictures) - Alexia Miranda - Photograph by René Lovo.

INTIMARIO 9 - "Domestícame"- detail of piece

INTIMARIO 6 - "Still" Video (Contemplative Images I) - Video Performance, Alexia Miranda

INTIMARIO 7 - "Still" Video (Contemplative Images II) - Video Performance, Alexia Miranda

*Photographs taken from Intimario Blog (http://intimarioexpo.blogspot.com/)

Link to article from La Prensa Gráfica - "Artistas muestran el lado íntimo" - Thursday May 28th 2009 – By Patricia Cruz "

2010-02-10T16:44:00.001-05:00

INTIMARIO - PROYECTOS INÉDITOS - Friday, March 29th 2009.

2010-02-10T16:42:00.003-05:00

INTIMARIO - PROYECTOS INÉDITOS

Friday, March 29th 2009.

CURATORIAL TEXT

Intimario
Proyectos Inéditos

Alexia Miranda
Jaime Izaguirre
Simón Vega

This exhibition brings together the works and proposals that, despite possessing various themes, share the experimental and intimate character of the three artists selected by the curatorial committee of MARTE Contemporáneo, during the Hocus Pocus auction/exhibit held in November 2008.
The paintings, drawings, sculptures and videos that comprise this exhibition present various points regarding the process of each artist; the exhibit is based upon those works of art that seldom leave their studios and that offer the viewer a direct approach to the creative act in its various phases.

Taken from the Intimario Blog (http://intimarioexpo.blogspot.com/) – published by Alexia Miranda.

MARTE-C E-book by Cre8tive Juice Group

2010-02-09T11:27:00.001-05:00

2010-01-29T10:06:00.003-05:00

ZONAS DE TRUEQUE

September 3^rd to October 31^st 2009

The Bronx River Art Centre in New York and Museo de Arte in El Salvador, presented the following exhibit, in their MARTE Contemporáneo program:

ZONAS DE TRUEQUE

Curator Jose Ruiz

(Peru | New York USA)

Artists: Karlos Carcamo

(El Salvador | New York, USA)

Esperanza Mayobre

(Venezuela | New York, USA)

Diego Medina

(Mexico | New York, USA)

Performance: Ghettoblaster – Irvin

Morazan ( El Salvador | New York, USA)

The exhibit Zonas de Trueque is a reflection of the Bartered States; sample presented in New York during May 2009, and in which pieces created in situ by Salvadorian artists, like Ronald Morán, Simón Vega, Walterio Iraheta and Danny Zavaleta, were displayed. These artists managed to link the art with the life framed within a socio-politic practice. Moreover, this exhibition, at MARTE, is the continuation of a cultural exchange between a group of Salvadorian artists and Latin American artists, living in New York, who have created their own dialogue and collaboration systems, all together, throughout 2009.

The opportunity to conduct the guardianship of two exhibitions, one in El Salvador and one in the United States, led to the possibility of carrying-out a series of investigations: the explorations of the paradigms of interdependence between the two countries, and the discovery of the elements, in-force, elaborated throughout the process of transformation, assimilation and resistance; the use of these postmodern elements as “needles” to explore the epidermis of migration and identity that homogenizes Latin-Americans living in the U.S.; and finally, the change in the idea of “going” (to display) with “coming back” (to display).

This idea of “coming back” (to display) led me to get in touch with three New York artists: Karlos Carcamo (El Salvador), Esperanza Mayobre (Venezuela) y Diego Medina (Mexico), whose countries of birth, evidently, withhold and share irresistible social, political, and cultural histories. In addition, these artists’ works embody offerings that connect with the Latin American cultural language that they developed and left behind.

Whenever a traveler returns to his/her country, he/she returns with numerous adventurous stories and anecdotes, recently acquired customs, and strange gifts from very exotic places. This leads us to believe that these experiences and memories were gathered through courtesy gestures or symbolic exchanges, but what really constitutes the brought-back-home element is something often interchangeable through a different set of rules, bets and commitments.

By means of co-existence, dependence and reciprocity investigations, Zonas de Trueque deconstructs the term exchange (swap) to dissipate the notion or idea that each exchange, even when agreed-upon by both parties, preserves the mutual interests and expectations. When stripped from its material function (tangible goods and services exchange), the very act of exchanging or swapping can also expose the global power unbalance, through which one party is at the mercy of the other, or is forced to act, to get stuck or to defend itself as to be able to progress.

Furthermore, the various mixed techniques used in Karlos Carcamo’s works, which include sculptures, painting, as well as photography, have turned towards minimalism and conceptual strategies; in the very same way that violence has focused on the urban plot. The facilities of Esperanza Mayobre decode the apparent objective transparency for obtaining different types of visas, which are needed to go into the U.S. This provides evidence for the anxiety and ambiguity that is generated in the person who requests a legal entry and residency in this country. The clear impossibilities found in the videos and works related to Diego Medina, indirectly influenced by Eduardo Galeano’s book, Las venas abiertas de América Latina: Cinco siglos de saqueo de un continente, mark the transformations when placed on the side of volume, and when the volume appears to be a double-strategy for political ideologies that can only exist as concepts.

Additionally, Irvin Morazan, a Salvadorian artist established in New York, presented, on the opening day at MARTE, a performance in the form of a ritual, through which he personified pre-Columbian deities that assumed the roles of “break-dance” dancers, and who fight in favor of hip-hop music, which was loudly played from sound devices that simulated headgear.

These weak operations systems are discovered through the creation of interdisciplinary works that assign the responsibility to each side of the equation. The collective sentiment of these facilities, performances, videos and objects allow us to get acquainted with the cultural language shift and with the process in which one should always be geared forward as to be knowledgeable, inquisitive and resourceful in this life experience’s reality. A reality that is not based on the separating differences or in the similar things that generate indifference, but in a fragile, yet densely integrated shared historical network that still needs to be deciphered, rooted out or mediated. If the role of the artist is to act like society’s critical voice, through questioning and the exposure of life’s unbalances, then this group of artists, along with the Salvadorian counterpart, have acted quite rightly in their pathway to create the necessary atmosphere as to inspire the rest of society, with the objective of contributing to a social change.

José Ruiz

José Ruiz is an artist and curator established in New York, who has moved between Lima, Brasilia, Washington D.C. and San Francisco. He has a Masters in Fine Arts in New Genres from the Art Institute in San Francisco, acquired in 2004. He began his curatorial practice in 2000, as part of an interdisciplinary and collaborative art project. Since then, Ruiz has been curator at around, 15 national and international exhibits, and has been co-curator of approximately 30 visual and performance art projects from various institutions and organizations, such as the Bronx River Art Center, the Queens Art Museum, PS122 Gallery, Decatur Blue, P.P.O.W. Gallery and Transformer Gallery.

The MARTE Contemporáneo program is sponsored by Mario Cader-Frech and the MARTE Contemporáneo Committee.

2010-01-29T10:00:00.003-05:00

Oh Jung – Ja:

Feelings and Metaphors

June 16th – August 16th 2009

Korea’s Embassy in El Salvador and the “Museo de Arte”, present, in their MARTE Contemporáneo program, the following exhibit:

Oh Jung – Ja:

Feelings and Metaphors

Oh Jung – Ja is a prominent painter, in the world of Korean artists; she was born in 1945, year in which Japan’s occupation came to an end.

Whether her ancestors learnt the art of painting through Japanese instructors or were influenced by them, Oh Jung – Ja had the luck to learn this wonderful ability in a university of the now independent Japan.

In 1963, she began her painting career at the University of Ewha, and she specialized in oriental painting; since then, she has dedicated her time exclusively to painting. Moreover, Jung-Ja had the opportunity to learn about portraits from professors like Lee Yu-tae; about flower and bird painting from Cho Jung-hyun and about the modern sense of painting from An Dong-suk. She also attended the studio of Park No-su’s, who enjoyed Chinese painting. Thus, with the experience acquired from various outstanding professors, it is evident that Oh Jung-Ja has taken advantage of this experience until today.

Her talent has been recognized since the early times: she has been selected for the Korean National Art Exhibit for 8 consecutive times; she obtained the special prize in the Baekyanghoe y Mokwoohoe public contest.

After her graduation, in 1967, her independent exposition was put together, at the Hyundai and Sun galleries. Since then, up until today, she has displayed her works of art in a total of 14 exhibits; half of them have been abroad, including displays in Tokyo, Nagano, Washington D.C., Geneva, and Caracas.

Furthermore, Jung-Ja’s career debuted since the 60s and 70s with portrait painting, and in the 80s, she developed the animal theme, such as silk tent, pigeon, turkey, sparrow, magpie, as well as the colored fish. She also created paintings representing flowers, including lily, poppy and camellia images, which contributed to the ample themes her paintings encompass until this very day. Then again, despite working with various themes, her paintings are characterized by the splendid colors, the exact description and the balanced composition on the canvas.

In the last few years, her artwork has gone though numerous transformations, going from descriptive sceneries to feelings; in other words, her pieces do not try to reflect the image, but they do try to catch one’s attention through the ambiance represented on the canvas.

In addition, whenever the painting’s characteristic changes, so does the technique; however, artist Jung-ja never creates her works of arts by immediately drawing. What she does is that she utilizes a technique that emphasizes the material’s quality feel and tries to generate sensations through the light teal color.

Oh Jung-ja prefers to draw on creased korean paper, Hanji*, rather than on normal paper; whenever the paper is wrinkled, the evidence of the “ruin” remains, just as if a hurricane would have passed-by. Thus, the artist begins to produce her works focusing on the observation of the deformed surface, created by the wrinkling and folding.

Her technique is based on utilizing various corrugated pieces of paper, which are pasted all together to provide a strong and firm surface; this surface is then ready to be drawn and painted on. Standing before the paper, she uses the brush to color the surface with extreme care. The pigment she uses easily dissolves in water, and so, a few strokes do not show the color on the paper; one of Hanji’s characteristics, is that it absorbs color rather fast. Therefore, only after applying the paint for numerous times, the color is satisfactorily visible.

As a result, the fact that the painter repeats this process a variety of times must be to feel the intense characteristic of color, every time the pigment accumulates, and to deal with the peculiar texture of the Hanji. Consequently, this would be the reason for the huge effort she puts on this technique despite the many months of work an art piece, using this method, requires; since one cannot easily give-up on exquisiteness.

Something similar occurs with the work on silk. The soft surface that a piece of paper has will be different to the smooth and even texture of silk; however, color applied on paper is like accumulating snow. The color is not applied on one stroke, but in a gradual manner which augments the density; achieving a secret strength. It is in this, that time and dedication is invested; hiding the emotion and the thought of an aesthetic experience, and through this, one can perceive the beauty of metaphorical art - very unique and characteristic of the artist.

Furthermore, in her last art pieces, one can detect the sources of her inspiration, which have been the squatting pigeons, the owl and the solitary bird, bathed in moonlight. As well as, the tent that lies underwater, the bird that flutters its wings to fly, and the bird that comfortably rests in its nest.

Beside the images, one can also see the flower scenes with peonies, daffodils, Indian lilacs and camellias; all of which are blossoming radiantly.

If just observed lightly, this can be perceived as a simple flower or animal painting, but in reality, the images in the paintings are being used in a metaphorical sense, by the painter, as to portray the special meaning they possess. For example, the pigeon, the lonely bird, or the tent, all symbolize the ego or the man who finds himself in a determined environment.

Likewise, this is where the painter represents the moonlight, the soft waves or the extravagant flowers, etc., to provide relief and hope to those beings who are under strenuous and difficult situations. The painting displaying the bird with its fully extended wings, preparing to take off, or the one portraying the bird energetically gliding through the air, signify the action of setting yourself on the search of real freedom.

Excerpt taken from Un corazon calido, llevado a traves del pincel, Oh Jung-ja, by Seo Sung-rok, President of the Korean Painting Critics Association.

Hanji*: Hand-crafted Korean paper, made from Morera tree. This paper is mainly used for traditional painting and calligraphy.

La Forma Equivalente - March 19th to April 12th, 2009

2010-01-29T09:57:00.001-05:00

La Forma Equivalente

From March 19th to April 12th, 2009

EspIRA / La ESPORA and the Museum of Art of El Salvador within the program MARTE Contemporáneo, presents the exhibition:

La Forma Equivalente (LFE)

This itinerante sample is sustained by two sources: on the one hand, by Central American artists who regularly build proposals on identity and power and whose works in LFE are mostly known. On the other hand, participants of the Academic Residence for Emerging Central American Artists (RAPACES), in its edition 2008-09, organized as well by EspIRA / La ESPORA and also called La Forma Equivalente.

When in 2007 we conceived the thematic area, we thought about questioning the historical relations, often romantic, between art and the dominant power – patriarchy, capitalism, racism and other systems of domination that need, just as many other things in this life, the visual scaffolding that art provides: from ultra-conventional ways, as the female nudity, to the less recognized, yet more surprising, strategies that we expected to find through dialogue with the artists.

For this purpose we called on LFE residency, a meeting of Central American emerging artists, under RAPACES, that would serve as a platform for discussion regarding art and power, and the production of a work in this sense. The other thing we did was to invite those artists that have already been working with issues such as gender, ethnicity, class, colonization, cultural, aesthetic stereotypes, to the LFE Exhibit.

It happened that in the LFE residency, participants and instructors expanded the field of discussion in various directions, like the broad and abstract field of power of images or the more specific art and its intimate relations with the curatorial power.

On the other hand, we knew that the works of guest artists were going to suggest new readings as soon as they reconfigured with the “whole” ... but that “whole” continued to be unclear since the outcome of the residency remained to be seen, and the study of the communication, the search, the articulation or non-articulation, between some works and others was still pending. In addition, we also knew that the trajectories of the two groups were very different; the individual weights of the participants are as diverse as Mosca and Welter. The combination was a risky action, however, after considering costs, risks, and benefits, we betted on the benefits. The result was amazing: LFE residency produced vigorous works and we began to notice convergences in the new “whole”, healthy divergences, links that went loose without losing the tension, as well as works that unexpectedly tied up in a natural and strong fashion.

The task of verbally articulating these perceptions, and to assemble them in space, leads to the harmonization, hopefully not too much, of a set that is based upon common interests and that is guided to a divergence of complex heterogeneities. The La Forma Equivalente Exhibit revises its own senses; it proposes itself as an exercise of reasoning that motivates and offers viewers with a peculiar combination of reflections, difficult to classify in other circumstances.

Patricia Belli

EspIRA / La ESPORA

Participating artists for this exhibition are:

Edgar Calel, Regina Galindo, Sandra Monterroso (Guatemala)

Melissa Guevara, Mauricio Esquivel, Jaime Izaguirre (El Salvador)

Celeste Ponce, Lester Rodríguez (Honduras)

Raúl Quintanilla, Norlan Gutiérrez, Alejandro Flores, Jullissa Moncada, Laura Baumeister, Gabriel Serra, Ricardo Huezo, Consuelo Mora, Darling López Salinas (Nicaragua)

Javier Calvo Sandí, Diana Barquero, Fabrizio Arrieta, Roberto Guerrero, Paulina Velázquez (Costa Rica)

The MARTE Contemporáneo program is sponsored by Mario Cáder Frech and the MARTE Contemporáneo committee.

MARTE Contemporáneo Announces the Results of the Hocus Pocus Charity Events

2009-04-07T16:18:00.005-04:00

MARTE Announces its Contemporary Art Program for 2009

SAN SALVADOR, December 1, 2008 - MARTE Contemporáneo’s committee announces the results of their successful charity event Hocus Pocus, organized to raise funds with the purpose of benefiting the arts program at the Museum of Contemporary Art in El Salvador (MARTE). At the same time, MARTE announces the contemporary art program for 2009.

The Hocus Pocus charity event raised a total of $ 11,800 through the sale of tickets for a raffle of donated art works, by national and international artists. These funds will become MARTE’s contemporary art programming. Tentative for 2009:

-Grant for an artist to represent El Salvador in the exhibition Patricia Belli
-Display of a national collective in MARTE
-Display of Video art in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, Florida
-Cultural exchange and exhibition in collaboration with the Art Center in the Bronx, New York
-Exhibition of donated art works by international artists managed by MARTE Contemporáneo
-Launch of book MARTE Contemporáneo

In addition, MARTE Contemporary announced the three artists that participated in the Hocus Pocus event who won to receive a collective exhibition at the Galleria 1-2-3 during 2009: Simon Vega, Jaime Izaguirre and Alexia Miranda.

The charity event Hocus Pocus was a "lottery" of 59 works donated by national and international artists who are in the field of contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, etc.. Tickets for the raffle had a cost of $ 100 and were provided by MARTE Contemporáneo exclusively to young collectors, raising a total of $ 5,900, which was doubled by adding a private donation that brought it to a total of $ 11,800. Each ticket was numbered and placed in an urn. One by one, the tickets were drawn randomly and collectors had the opportunity to choose the available work he liked best, depending on when his turn was and the available remaining artwork. "In fact it was an event full of energy, very exciting and a great opportunity to meet the artists and hear in person about their concepts,” said Rodolfo Schildknecht, one of the young collectors that assisted the charity event.

The artists participating in the event Hocus Pocus donated a piece for the raffle, these works were exhibited from October 7th to the 9th in the lobby of the President Theater and were qualified for their innovation by an invited jury composed by: John Sanchez, Director of the Center Cultural de España in El Salvador, Susan Lee-Chung, an artist and independent curator from Miami, Florida; Elizabeth Diaz Soto, Mexican gallerist; Rebeca Davila, Director of CENAR in El Salvador. The invited jury chose Simon Vega, Jaime Izaguirre and Alexia Miranda, who won awards as a collective exhibition at the Galleria 1-2-3 scheduled for 2009. The donated works can be seen in www.MarteContemporaneo.blogspot.com. "This is a collaboration between artists, collectors and gallery owners to support the Museum's program," said Alexia Miranda, who added: "For me it was a great opportunity to deal with over 50 young collectors, to share my ideas and also get the opportunity to exhibit.”

Hocus Pocus

2008-11-20T10:20:00.002-05:00

Susan Lee-Chun - The Suz in da' House

2008-10-21T17:08:00.002-04:00

The merging of all three “Suz” into a single entity is to fuse art and artist to form a brand or new authentic identity. As a real brand and "corporate mission," The Suz is about bringing more to the table than the typical experience, it's "faux real authentic." Intrigued by the economy of the experience, The Suz will organize activities catered and devised to render an “authentic” experience incorporating installation, video, and performance. These multi-media projects are produced to challenge the boundaries between art, artist, and audience. Also, their symbolic presence as an authentically fake/real company, in the work is the catalyst to the development of a new series of experience-based projects devised to address the notions of authenticity, identity, and perceptions.

For the exhibition at MARTE, The Suz will be presenting a fabricated set that will consist of a custom designed (faux) kitchen, specifically constructed to accommodate a cooking show hosted by Sue in front of a live audience. This premiere episode and demo will feature the making of a special "faux real" Asian dish.

An excerpt about the cooking show:

Sue, raised in the southern region of the United States, will colorfully detail how to create an "authentic" Asian dish. Her travels to all over the United States of America has taught her what it takes to make the quintessential Asian dish, just like the ones you have at your local Chinese restaurant. She may even share an ancient Chinese secret- a special ingredient only produced by The Suz.

Emilio Chapela - Spectacular... but empty

2008-10-21T17:06:00.003-04:00

It has become frequent to discover a lot of attempts in art (some of them desperate and others really intelligent) to amaze us, like if we were watching a fireworks spectacle. Art is becoming big, shinny, glossy, noisy and very expensive to produce. But most of all, it is becoming spectacular.

Spectacular… but empty, it is a piece that both takes part in the game of the spectacle, and criticize it. It makes a circular comment in such a way that it contradicts itself: It says clear and loud: This is spectacular! And at the same time it says (silently), but it is empty too. But don’t be confused: I love Spectacular art! For Raul Zamudio-Taylor Spectacular... but empty (2008) by Emilio Chapela “it is an ironic allusion to Guy Debord’s important situationist book titled the Society of the Spectacle published in 1967”

About Hocus Pocus

2008-09-23T12:32:00.007-04:00

Hocus Pocus is an activity adapted from a series of successful fundraising art events in the United States organized by museums and artists with the purpose of raising funds for organizations dedicated to promoting contemporary art.

This event consists of a lottery of donated works of art by national and international contemporary artists who are participants in areas such as painting, sculpture, photography, video, etc.

Tickets for this lottery will be distributed exclusively by MARTE Contemporáneo to potential young collectors who will attend the event themselves or will send a representative. The tickets will cost $100 and will be valid for two persons. Each ticket will be numbered and will be placed in a raffle box. Ticket holders will be able to choose their preferred work of art as their number is randomly being called.

The donating artists plus one will be able to attend the event with the purpose of interacting and meeting personally with the young collectors who are present at the event.

THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST AND MARTECONTEMPORANEO AT HOCUS POCUS.

Hocus Pocus is an event in which the artists and MARTE Contemporáneo unite to promote contemporary art in El Salvador.

MARTE Contemporáneo’s role is to serve as a link between artists and potential young collectors in order to motivate these young people to interact with the museum and to become involved in the contemporary arts, while at the same time creating an extensive database for future events.

The artist's role is not limited to donating a single work of art. This donation turns them into participating members of MARTE Contemporáneo who can offer ideas and opinions for future events to the members of the board. Their role is also to train the eye of the collectors and make them aware o new tendencies in contemporary art.

OBJECTIVES OF THE EVENT

Create a meeting between young collectors and contemporary artists.

Motivate artists to create elaborate works with innovative and original characteristics through traditional or alternative mediums in the form of a high quality work.

The works can be parts of s series or unique.

Three works will be selected by a jury made of expert international and national curators based on its quality. The artist of the first of these three works selected will be awarded with a personal exhibition at the Galeria 1-2-3, (date to be defined) one of the most recognized galleries in the country. The winners will not be announced until all the participants have chosen a work of art.

GUIDELINES FOR PARTICIPANT ARTISTS

Participating artists (both national and international) must have previously been invited by MARTE Contemporáneo to donate one work of art per artist.

They can be unique works or editions (in such cases the edition must be numbered).

The work will be 100% donated. If it is a part of a series the rest of the edition may remain as the artist’s property. The works must arrive at MARTE in proper presentation and ready to be exhibited.

BENEFITS

Each artist and young participant will receive a catalog at the beginning of the event for reference purposes. The catalog will contain images of all the work exhibited along with the author, the technique, the date and the dimensions.

Each artist who donates an art work will receive a one year free pass for one person to the museum.

The artist of the winning art work who will exhibit at Galeria 1-2-3 will also have a personal catalogue of his or her exhibition made for the public.

Each art work will be authenticated.

IMPORTANT DATES

All works must be turned in at MARTE by September 30 from 9:00a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 2:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The date of the event is scheduled for Thursday, October 9 2008 at Teatro Presidente’s lobby at 8:30 p.m.

That same day the winners of the event will be announced and the yearly passes will be distributed to the artists.

I Dream of the Stans

2008-09-19T11:47:00.000-04:00

In conjunction with Asian Contemporary Art Week 2008, Winkleman Gallery is extremely pleased to present I Dream of the Stans, an exhibition of new video by leading contemporary artists in Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Co-curated by independent curator Leeza Ahmady, Murat Orozobekov, and Edward Winkleman, the exhibition surveys the range of powerful new works emerging from this often overlooked region of the world. Since the incredible critical acclaim that greeted the first Central Asian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2005, contemporary artists from Afghanistan and the former Soviet Republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have drawn an increasing amount of attention from Western curators, museums and galleries. Most of the newfound attention centers on the remarkably strong single- and multi-channel video works produced in the region, a fact often attributed to the region’s centuries-old traditions of storytelling, street theater, and weaving.

I Dream of the Stans brings together works by seven of the area’s most important artists (and teams) including Vyacheslav Akhunov, Rahraw Omarzad, Almagul Menlibayeva, Jamshed Khalilov, Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev, Said Atabekov, and Julia Tikhonova & Rustam Khalfin.

Known for elaborate multi-channel video installations (including a 5-channel piece recently commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago), the husband-wife team Muratbek Djumaliev & Gulnara Kasmalieva (Kyrgyzstan) present their 2006 single-channel piece Something About Contemporary Nomadism, in which a steady stream of seemingly bored airline passengers passing through security blithely submit to what would be seen as highly invasive personal searches in other settings. Guards with rubber gloves pat them down, touching their inner legs and backs and chests, while the passengers seem to hardly notice.

In Vyacheslav Akhunov’s (Uzbekistan) video Cleaner the artist is seen meticulously cleaning the surfaces of various British national monuments in London with his toothbrush. Akhunov was well known by his peers as the “official anti-official artist” during the Soviet era, but now continues to tackle ideas of cultural superiority, be it intellectual, spiritual or political. In his videos, the subjects often repeat certain actions or gestures in a kind of circular pattern; from bottom to top, one point to another, or just going round and about - all reminiscent of various forms of Sufi meditations. In Cleaner Akhunov reminds us that perhaps our sacredly guarded ideas about culture and its production needs some form of cleansing. He is keen on broadening defined notions and unburdening established authorities by exploring conflicts, which are derivative of culture that in itself is subjective.

Rustam Khalfin (born in Uzbekistan and resident of Kazakhstan), as follower of Russian historical avant-garde and both teacher and theorist of trends in contemporary art and culture, has played an integral role in training younger artists. In his collaboration video with Julia Tikhonova, entitled Northern Barbarians, Part II: Love Races, a young couple is making love, nude on horseback, while riding across some desolate woods. Inspired by two series of watercolors from the 18th and 19th centuries (found in the book of “Chinese Eros”) the love scenes are re-interpreted. The term “Northern Barbarians” is a reference the name the ancient Chinese called the wild wanderers they were grateful to have the Great Wall of China separate them from. The video is the reconstruction of an ancient way of making love in a region highly connected to its nomadic past and spirit. Considered a masterpiece, the work exemplifies how Khalfin’s painterly mind is matched by his conceptual vigor for contextual criticism.

Two internationally exhibiting artists also from Kazakhstan, Almagul Menlibayeva and Said Atabekov, address the processes for change and reform in Central Asia with a focus on Asian continental ties and mentality. Said Atabekov is a founding member of the influential collaborative “Kizil Traktor” (Red Tractor). In his video Neon Paradise, the artist is dressed in his signature dervish outfit made of an odd mixture of absurd objects, materials and props, including an old Soviet-military jug for water. He is seen sitting like an aberration kneeled in a kind of a prayer position repeatedly bowing his head down towards an automatic double glass door that continues to open and shut as he moves. It is not clear whether the doors open into a corporate building, modern super market, or university. What is clear is that in this noble open-ended manner the artist is deconstructing contemporary realities such as economic and environmental decadence and other technologically driven mass global deliriums.

Almagul Menlibayeva is known as an experimental artist working simultaneously in a variety of media such as painting, performances, installations and videos. Her gorgeously landscaped and peopled videos translate the various dimensions of what she wishes to express about beauty, decor, ritual and spiritual practices. Her primary concern with women and their role in pre -Soviet, pre-Islamic, and even shamanistic and dervish origins is exemplified in her video Jihad.

Rahraw Omarzad, an artist and professor at Kabul University, established the Center for Contemporary Art Afghanistan (CCAA). He is the conceptual author of the video work Opening in collaboration with his students and members of CCAA. Through CCAA, Omarzad has been actively working with young artists in an effort to foster their sense of independence and individuality. Re-education is therefore a pressing; not only in re-thinking art and its making but in rendering visible the various truths that are buried beneath the piles of media-manufactured issues facing Afghanistan. In this video, a dark screen and a loud consistent banging sound slowly opens to a woman’s sparkling eyes under her “Chadori”. Someone from the outside cuts open a layer of fabric in front of the veiled women, but instead of seeking to come out or to cut off her veil with the scissors, she opts to embroider a beautiful and colorful floral design around the opening with her sensually jeweled and painted hands. The work is a poetic gesture towards woman’s creative role in the world as assigned to her by nature and how the subjects of freedom and limitation are relative to internal attitudes, regardless of how dire the external façade.

Jamshed Khalilov represented Tajikistan at the Central Asian Pavilion in Venice in 2007. In his charming piece Bus Stop, each image in a series of photographs of the often highly decorated structures providing shelter for commuters throughout Central Asian countries seems to pause momentarily and then whisk off to the side, as if mimicking the stop-and-start motions of a bus along its route. Often blending Soviet motifs with more ancient and/or Islamic architectural themes and patterns, each of the bus stops is a unique artistic statement even as it serves a public purpose. Sometimes fantastical (one is shaped like the traditional hat worn by natives), sometimes simply beautiful, these now nostalgic structures stand out as oases of expression along the otherwise often desolate roads they punctuate.