To defeat the purpose


guerilla tactics in Latin American art


curation
Aoyama Meguro gallery, Tokyo 2020


Photography: Takashi Fujikawa


Mexican cooking event


Our objective was to connect the visitors of our exhibition with Latin American culture. We did this not only through art but also through food. Co-curator Pablo Cendejas cooked authentic Mexican food for our Japanese guests at the gallery space during the exhibition period.



Screening event
‘Crazed Hairstyles’ by Santiago Cendejas


During the closing event the short-film ‘Crazed Hairstyles’ by Santiago Cendejas (Mexico City, 1987) was shown. The film was shot with a 16mm film camera in 2010.





To defeat the purpose:
guerrilla tactics in Latin American art

13 Jun – 11 Jul 2020

Curators: Vincent Ruijters & Pablo Cendejas

closing event (performance & screening): 11 Jul 2020 18:30-20:00
venue: Aoyama Meguro
2-30-6 Kamimeguro Meguroku, Tokyo, Japan

A dichotomy emerged in Latin America. Surrounded by monuments, unfairly valued. Independent exhibition spaces emerged. Only later to become monuments in their own rights. Scarcity provoked creativity and the lack of solid cultural structure permitted fluidity. Young Latin American artist developed ‘guerilla tactics’ as a reaction to this situation. The wide variety of ways to approach exhibition and art practices that evolved from this is displayed by 19 young artists in this exhibition. Does the stark contrast between these pristine walls and their wacky interventions bring justice to their injustice?

Partcipating artists: Wendy Cabrera (MEX), Marek Wolfryd (MEX), Marco Aviña (MEX), Karla Kaplun (MEX), Carlos Martinez (MEX), Lisa Giordano (USA), José Eduardo Barajas (MEX), Lourdes Martinez (MEX), Tenet (Kevin Hollidge (CAN), Julia Eshagpour(USA)), Maximiliano León (MEX), Rodrigo Echeverría (MEX), Samuel Nicolle (FR), Hellene Alligant (FR), Santiago Cendejas (MEX), Alonso Cedillo & Lilia Casillas (MEX), Ana Blumenkron (MEX), Mario Peña Güemez (MEX).

Press
“Brutus Magazine” July issue, How Young Latin American Artists use Guerrilla Tactics to express themelves, 2020/7/1
ハイリスク/ノーリターンズ
−ラテン・アメリカン現代美術のゲリラ戦術
会期:2020年6月13日(土)–  7月11日(土)

ゲスト・キュレーターズ:ヴィンセント・ライタス & パブロ・センデハス

クロージングイベント(パフォーマンス+スクリーニング):7月11日(土)18:30-20:00

会場:青山目黒、東京都目黒区上目黒 2-30-6

ラテン・アメリカは現在、多くの遺跡に囲まれた環境にありながらもアートシーンは正当に評価されていないという2つの矛盾した状況の狭間にいます。そんな中、自らが将来の新たな遺跡となるべく独自のアート発信の場が次々と登場し始めました。この「アートの居場所」への欠乏感がむしろアーティストたちの創作意欲を刺激し、また文化基盤の曖昧さゆえにアートシーンがより流動的になったのです。

そして今、ラテン・アメリカの若手アーティスト達が「ラテン・アメリカからの刺客」として立ち上がりました。本展では、19人の刺客たちが様々なジャンル・手法でゲリラアートを発信します。果たしてこの伝統と革新のコントラストは不条理な世の中に正義をもたらす一筋の光となるでしょうか?

参加アーティスト:Wendy Cabrera (MEX), Marek Wolfryd (MEX), Marco Aviña (MEX), Karla Kaplun (MEX), Carlos Martinez (MEX), Lisa Giordano (USA), José Eduardo Barajas (MEX), Lourdes Martinez (MEX), Tenet (Kevin Hollidge (CAN), Julia Eshagpour(USA)), Maximiliano León (MEX), Rodrigo Echeverría (MEX), Samuel Nicolle (FR), Hellene Alligant (FR), Santiago Cendejas (MEX), Alonso Cedillo & Lilia Casillas (MEX), Ana Blumenkron (MEX), Mario Peña Güemez (MEX).

Press
2020年 ブルータス 2020年7月15号「美しいアートにある、残酸な今:南米の若者が、ゲリラ戦術を駆使してまで表現したいこととは。」



Performance directed by Lourdez Martínez


On the last exhibition day a performance was held which was directed by the Mexican artist, Lourdez Martínez. For the performance co-curator Vincent Ruijters fabricated ‘Pastillas Pato Purific’; a toilet cleaning product in the shape of a blue duck which is widely used in Mexico but unavailable in Japan. The performance consisted of the other co-curator Pablo Cendejas talking of his all his clothes and using the fabricated ‘Pastillas Pato Purific’ to draw a blue line across the entire gallery.


STATEMENT LOURDES MARTINEZ

My name is Lourdes Martinez, I reside in Mexico. My career in art spans 11 years now. This has not been easy, at all. I live in a constant resignation state, which has made the obstacles I face even bigger as I do not meet the archetype of a female artist people expect and sadly, the world is a difficult place for women.

Pintura de patos is a project born as a strategy to face diverse violence manifestations I experience from a gender perspective in my artistic career, where any outputs from the project are mere subsequent objects, derived from an opposition to the aforementioned violence to reconceive my practice as an ongoing, long term, defined scope, manipulation, aggressive forms of participation and negotiation against male dominance among other forms of violence I experiment on a day to day basis, from an axis of social reflection of body idealization compounded with identity notions, political cartography, thought currents and structural feeling, such as when art is modeled after political aesthetics, material, placed or exposed in contexts like Mexico, Latin America, Asia or Europe where various layers of transitional metaphor and poetic action operate, political and symbolical, as alternatives supported by contradictory impulses offered by alienating event production and their becoming of a form of guerilla or fictional terrorism.

Why a duck?

The duck figure is a way of including diverse forms of symbolism in one image. On one hand and as an example, its sexual organ morphology is different from other bird species. Female ducks have developed a spiral vagina to repel aggressive males who, very often, force them to engage in sexual activity to procreate and where a conflict stems for control over the reproductive process lies behind that battle between both genders. On the other hand, from all the evocations contained in the variety of symbolic forms of the duck, I find it interesting to use the bath cleaner duck tablet for this exhibition as it is a common article in Latin American homes but is also a hygiene referent. The hygiene structures in art are a topic that has piqued my interest. By referencing hygiene, I believe art should be polished, wiped of certain content which impedes and enslaves the artist to self-management and invoke specific political themes to find a space. This is an ironic form of critiquing the structures of hygiene to which I appeal.






Photography: Takashi Fujikawa

© 2023 Vincent Ruijters All Rights Reserved.  
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