New Genres: ecology

Ecology of the After Life

May 10, 2024 | Cosmina Marcela OLTEAN ArtPage

At Anca Poterasu Gallery in Bucharest (RO) is now ongoing the group exhibition "Ecology of the After Life", on display until 1st of July, curated by William Ewing, including artworks by the great comtemporary artists Matei Bejenaru, Ioana Cîrlig, Aurora Király, Iosif Király and Delia Popa.

The opening included a AFAR Talk, a discussion about photography with curator William Ewing in dialogue with artist Iosif Király, followed by the opening of the group exhibition.

"The curator-artist discussion focused on photography - its rich past, turbulent present and uncertain future(s). The dialogue was followed by the opening of the group exhibition 'Ecology of the After Life', a project that revolves around recurrent and obsessive questions regarding human existence, science, nature's resilience, and the echoes of our actions" - the gallery informs.

"The exhibition serves as a metaphor for the regeneration of life as a whole, exploring not only human existence but also the intricate connections between organisms that sustain life on Earth. From Aurora Király's landscapes to Delia Popa's introspective reflections, Iosif Király's blurring of reality and fantasy, Ioana Cîrlig's documentation of coal miners, and Matei Bejenaru's chronicles of forgotten spaces, Ecology of the After Life contemplates the interconnectedness of living beings." - curator William Ewing

Artwork: Matei Bejenaru, Between Two Worlds_ICMET Craiova_03, chromogenic print, Diasec, 120x175cm, 2019, Ed.1/5+2AP.

The talk was organized by ARAC and Goethe-Institut Bucharest in the framework of AFAR Network project.

Artists for Artists Residency Network (AFAR) is an EU co-funded project and residency program, aiming to improve the mobility of contemporary visual artists and curators in Romania, Germany, Croatia, and Austria.

The project is led by the Romanian Association for Contemporary Art (ARAC) with its three consortium partners – Goethe Institute Network, Croatian Association of Fine Artists, and Künstlerhaus Vienna. www.afarnetwork.com

Artwork: Aurora Király, Ecology of the After Life, 70 x 105 cm, 2024.

Artwork: Aurora Király, Ecology of the After Life, pigment print on hahnemühle photo rag ultra smooth paper, 70 x 105 cm, 2022-2024.

Photo credits - Anca Poterasu Gallery

Argentina

"Manifiesto Verde", an exhibition on the climate crisis in Argentina

August 08, 2023 | nadiaevangelina

"Manifiesto Verde" (Green Manifesto) is an exhibition of Argentine artists at the Museum of Modern Art, as part of the annual exhibition program "El arte, ese río interminable" (Art, that endless river). Curated by Alejandra Aguado and Rodrigo Barcos as assistant curator, this exhibition highlights the pioneering art of ecological imprint created since the 1960s by Nicolás García Uriburu and proposes a dialogue with other Argentine artists whose works reactivate the imaginary of nature.

Nicolás García Uriburu

Museum of Modern Art

Florencia Böhtlingk, Luis Fernando Benedit, Melé Bruniard, Juana Butler, Feliciano Centurión, Nora Correas, Casimiro Domingo, Raquel Forner, Ricardo Garabito, Edgardo Giménez, Juan Grela, Aid Herrera, Lido Iacopetti, Marcelo Pombo and Juan Tessi, are the artists who build a common thread with Nicolás García Uriburu's "Green Manifesto". In his statement written in 1971, Uriburu denounces the antagonism between nature and civilization through his performative practice. His best-known gesture is to dye water green with a harmless fluorescent substance, as he did with the waters of Venice, in Italy, or the Riachuelo, a heavily polluted river in Buenos Aires.

In a mix of tributes and contemporary views, this exhibition proposes to recover the fundamental role of his painting as a manifesto against the depredation and exploitation of the Earth. The cornerstone is Uriburu's paintings. From this impulse, a dialogue begins with Florencia Böhtlingk, who created for the occasion "Hunters and Gatherers", a gigantic mural 16 meters wide x 4 meters high. Another example is Uriburu's pop-style paintings together with the free and public drawings of Marcelo Pombo, emblematic artist of Argentine pop art. Also on display are textiles by Feliciano Gómez Centurión and tapestries by Edgardo Giménez, from which the imaginary of nature is reactivated.

Museum of Modern Art

This exhibition brings the environmental crisis back to the center of the debate, recovering Uriburu's work. Like the artistic avant-gardes of the early 20th century, art and life converge from a political dimension centered on calling attention to the depredation of Latin America's natural resources. "With my art, I denounce the antagonism between Nature and Civilization. That is why I color my body, my sex, and the waters of the world. The most evolved countries are destroying water, land, and air, reserves of the future in Latin American countries," García Uriburu expressed in his Manifesto.

"Green Manifesto" intends to think of a genealogy from a work that is, beyond the fact that there is an imaginary that is referred to the natural, are investigations of artists and painters who are all the time thinking about how to compose, and achieve from their imaginary another type of work, a work that is, beyond the fact that there is an imaginary that is referred to the natural.