New Genres: Fundación Proa

The myth of "El Dorado" is the protagonist of the new exhibition at Fundación Proa

May 11, 2023 | nadiaevangelina

"El Dorado", at the cultural space in the neighborhood of La Boca, presents works and worldviews that expose the problem of natural resource exploitation that America experienced once it was discovered. From installations to videos, golden cobs covered with bullets, tires with golden drawings, and a giant golden potato, these pieces are part of the exhibition that proposes a journey through the colonial past and contemporary works. The group of works questions and proposes reflections for a dialogue located in the four rooms that serve as small passages and drifts.

Carolina Caycedo. "Patrón Mono: Ríos Libres, Pueblos Vivos", 2018/2022

The proposal revolves around the myth of "El Dorado", that mythical region that was speculated to extend from the Colombian gold-bearing rivers, passing through the Brazilian Amazon or the heights of Cusco, in Peru. Europeans in the 15th century believed that this place possessed inextinguishable riches, such as endless gold. Consequently, the search for El Dorado involved the enslavement of native people who would guide the European explorers to the city of gold. It is believed that this area was never found but we do know that the gold in the Americas was plundered and taken on ships to Europe. Silver, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and cocoa also suffered the same fate.

Based on documentary research carried out together with the Americas Society of New York and the Amparo Museum of Puebla, Mexico, with works and cosmovisions of Latin American artists, from Victor Grippo to Mathias Goeritz, Stefan Brüggemann, and Laura Vinci, among others, representative of the "diversity of foods, materials, and riches with which America changed the world". Thus, textiles, paintings, chocolate sculptures, samples of soil from different parts of the country, and even many small silver flies still on the wall make up this exhibition.

The journey begins in the first room with the sensorial experience of the video installation "Patrón mono", by Colombian artist Carolina Caycedo, and "La balsa", by Clorindo Testa, in play with a small boat by Grippo, which disguises a golden egg. Then comes the monochromatically gilded room with Vinci's aerial installation of gilded paper, the tapestry by Brazilian Leda Catunda, and the ecclesiastical vestments with gold threads from the 18th century, among other works.

Clorindo Testa. "El espejito dorado", 1990.

Víctor Grippo. "El dorado - huevo de oro", 1990

Leda Catunda. "El dorado II", 2018

Olga de Amaral. "Estela 35, 39, 40", 2007

The third room introduces the story of the myth of "El Dorado" with Teran's video. Also on display are Teresa Pereda's lands as small mounds arranged on rectangular cartography, Andrés Bedoya's silver flies, Betsabeé Romero's tires intervened with gold drawings, or Santiago Montoya's chocolate sculptures, in dialogue with the silver coins found in a time capsule on the side of the Pyramid of May, and the large wings of the same precious metal.

Finally, the foreign debt that is once again being discussed in New York at the IMF headquarters with Argentine representatives returns through the exhibition of Marta Minujin's installation, who pays the debt with corn and tomatoes to Andy Warhol. The public will have the opportunity to reproduce this now iconic photo as the protagonist.

Teresa Pereda. "Habla la tierra - Territorio posible", 1993-2023.

Marta Minujín & Andy Warhol. "Pago de la deuda externa argentina a Andy Warhol", 1985.

Iván Argote. "Batata", 2017

The exhibition achieves a very powerful contemporary value, since the character of "raw material" to be exported (plundered) by foreign capitalists is repeated in the north of Argentina with the lithium deposits, or in the south with the gas already handed over to multinationals.

"El Dorado"

Location: PROA Foundation, Av. Don Pedro de Mendoza 1929, C1169 CABA, Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Opening Date: 1st April 2023

End Date: 8th August 2023

Working hours: Thursday-Sunday: 12pm to 19 pm

Official website: https://www.proa.org/esp/

https://www.instagram.com/fundacion_proa/

Artists:

Iván Argote

Andrés Bedoya

Stefan Brüggemann

Fernando Bryce

Tania Candiani

Leda Catunda

Carolina Caycedo

Martín Chambí

Benvenuto Chavajay Ixitetla

Olda de Amaral

Sandra Gamarra

Ximena Garrido-Lecca

Mathias Goeritz

Victor Grippo

Leopoldo Maler

Mazanett & Quiroga

Marta Minujín

Santiago Montoya

Estela Pereda

Teresa Pereda

Betsabeé Romero

Florencia Sadir

Evi Tártari

Pedro Terán

Clorindo Testa

Gastón Ugalde

Laura Vinci

Buenos Aires

"Labyrinths", an exhibition on their historical importance at Fundación Proa

October 25, 2022 | nadiaevangelina

Fundación Proa, the space located in the heart of the city of La Boca, Buenos Aires, inaugurated the exhibition "Labyrinths" curated by Cecilia Jaime and Mayra Zolezzi. Throughout four thematic cores, the proposal goes through examples of history, literature, cinema, and plastic arts. "Labyrinths" seeks to reflect on the construction of labyrinths that, according to Jorge Luis Borges: "It is curious that man builds a space to get lost".

Cardboard Labyrinth by Michelangelo Pistoletto

"Whirligig", installation by Dan Graham

The first core introduces us to a 360-degree video installation, which shows the origin of the labyrinth in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Later it was considered a religious symbol until it reached the present day, which technically expands to the Internet labyrinth, considered the largest in the world.

The second core, call the city as a labyrinth, exhibits engravings of the mythical Jericho present in manuscripts. Then we move through the prisons of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, arriving at works by contemporary artists with intricate cities, real or imaginary, such as the plans of Leon Ferrari, the pinwheel of Dan Graham, or the watercolors of Xul Solar.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi

León Ferrari

Xul Solar

In literature, the labyrinth is the third thematic axis that presents texts by Jorge Luis Borges, Umberto Eco, Julio Cortázar, and Manuel Mujica Láinez. Labyrinths are sacred and pagan, they represent the path to perdition or salvation and can provoke. As Borges points out in an interview, labyrinths are fear but also hope; fear because we are lost, hope because there is a center, a plane, and architecture.

Borges Labyrinths

In the last room, the relationship between the labyrinths and the body is represented. This is glimpsed in Antonella Bussanich's video, which begins with the tracing of a labyrinth in the sand in allusion to that of the Chartres Cathedral until it transforms into a human brain through a juxtaposition and fusing of images. This idea is also found in the work of Yoan Capote, who starts from the design of the brain to approach it as a labyrinthine space, and Michelangelo Pistoletto, where the viewer becomes part of an installation, going through its labyrinth until finally finding the reflection of oneself, like Narcissus in the water.

In this room we can find scientific illustrations dating from the eighteenth century of the labyrinth of the ear, which gives its name to the complex cavities of the inner ear, confirming the presence of a labyrinthine space constitutive of our organism.

Each of these proposals is accompanied by room texts and activities during the exhibition that aims to deepen the different meanings, uses, and adaptations of the labyrinth given by national and international artists of all times, highlighting the enigma it continues to rise.