Inaguraciรณn 29 de noviembre - 7:30 p.m en Fundaciรณn Rozas-Botrรกn zona 14
Stages of grief
Lo que empezó como una investigación de mis nociones de la memoria y de la distancia, rápidamente se convirtió en una especie de diario, habitado por escenas arquitectónicamente absurdas, psicóticamente minuciosas, artificialmente higiénicas. Y detrás de todos los ‘layers’ de perspectiva y planos de color abstractos, se volvió casi imposible distinguir algún tipo de humanidad o de sensibilidad. Por un tiempo ese juego de extremos -de remover la mano del artista de mi obra, de emular la perfección digital en la técnica, de indagar aspectos filosóficos a través de lo visual- me ayudó a crear un framework conceptual apolítico, anti-personal, que proveía a mi trabajo de una narrativa satisfactoria para mí, como creador. De esta forma, el trabajo, durante los últimos años ha iniciado más preguntas que despejado dudas. La variedad de interpretaciones que se le ha dado, desde la completamente técnica hasta la puramente banal, nacen de esta negativa propia de elaborar sobre lo que existe debajo de los pigmentos. Y es que nunca he sentido que es responsabilidad del artista explicarle al espectador lo que está viendo. Sin embargo, en esta serie me encuentro a mí mismo necesitado de explicaciones, que de alguna forma al ser más directamente plasmadas en la obra van a redirigirse hacia el observador. Los espacios estáticos que funcionaban en mi trabajo anterior han sido contagiados por intervenciones lineales (gráficas y lingüísticas) que vandalizan,
explotan y pausan el plano pictórico. La línea se convierte en una especie de pulso, que guía al observador a través del plano, renderizando un espacio, al mismo tiempo que lo corrompe. Este espacio donde algunos componentes son pulcros, otros pareciera que no ‘cargan’, otros se renderizan con glitches (errores). El plano pictórico se transforma de esta forma en un proceso, en un continuo ‘bargain’ de intenciones que pareciera no estar acabado. De allí nace el título de esta exposición, Stages of grief. La línea es un arma de dos filos que desmantela y crea (en algunas obras de forma romántica, en otras con cierta maldad, en otras con resignación) la estabilidad del plano. Y es que así percibe nuestra especie la pérdida: como una línea irregular, como un proceso que marca, que transforma el entorno de nuestras ficciones, de nuestro video juego. -Mauricio Contreras-Paredes Mauricio Contreras-Paredes (1991) es un artista visual y antropólogo formado en la Universidad de Toronto (Canadá). Su obra ha sido exhibida en Centro América, el Caribe, Canadá y Estados Unidos, y pertenece a colecciones institucionales entre las cuales se encuentra Banco Promérica (Latinoamérica), Museo Ortiz Gurdián (Nicaragua) y The Swatch Group (Suiza). Actualmente vive entre Ciudad de Guatemala y Shanghai (China).
Interview by SCURO Magazine Mau Contreras-Paredes explores boundaries graciously. Despite the scale of his large public art works, they do not scream for attention. They imprint on the mind like a suggestion that lingers longer than any intrusion would. Encountering some of it: a multi-storied helix at the Avia/Hyatt complex, a revitalized neighborhood in zone 4, or passing a bridge above the highway that leads to Antigua, his work situates often on the line between public/municipal space and ventilates the bureaucratic grid in which cities often seem to place us, without our consent. His public art - meticulous, clear, careful, calm - is often so removed from its environment that it appears less an intervention than a suspended instrument of some kind. His public art intimates other contexts, other possibilities, different from the one where we play our daily roles. Its unexpected strangeness opens fleeting cause for awe and even gratitude within a place that - like all of the world’s most vibrant cities - can on a bad day become a sprawling labyrinth, impersonal and fast. I know that you work in plastic arts; that besides painting you’re working with sculpture; what else am I missing in regards to current practice? The first semester of this year has been a period of leaving, learning and readapting. It took me a while to finally find the courage to start a new body of work, a series where I bid farewell to my blue hues, among other things. What is your process like in public installation? Can you talk about a recent work from initiation to approval to “completion” or removal? What is an upcoming public installation? AVIA’s mural is the first project that comes to mind. Spanning 3-stories (almost 15 meters high), it is the largest public work I have completed to
date. I was contacted by the building’s Art Director to see if I was interested in presenting a proposal in July 2016. They were looking for something vertical, that had a sense of movement. I had recently finished another mural at Casa Llerandi, where I developed a kind of spatial accordion that pulled, distorted and contracted colour planes. I was very satisfied with the result and thought it could be a great idea to develop the concept further. My proposal included two of these accordion merging, dancing around one another, elevating themselves at different speeds. A few months later my proposal was approved and I was told I had to execute two-thirds of the mural in two weeks, since they were hoping to open the commercial spaces at that date. Initially I thought it would be impossible to produce a high-quality, high-precision work within that timeframe, so I hired a few assistants. Looking back, this was probably the worst decision ever. The assistants’ assistance looked more like sabotage than contribution, whatever I painted they damaged. So I decided to finish the mural by myself. In the end these sections of the mural were finished on time, leaving only the third floor on hold. A month ago I finally got to paint the last section of the mural, and I couldn’t be happier with the result; the mural is no longer headless. Can you talk about your approach to color? Specifically I am wondering about what appears to be a new exploration in gray, how gray resonates for you, whether you can talk about what prompts a color preoccupation to bloom or fade for you Usually the colour palette for a specific series is guided by intuition. However, blue has always appeared in my work for two main reasons. First, blue is my favourite colour, I am instinctively attracted to it. Second, whenever you look at
the sky or at a body of water they appear to be blue, when they are in fact transparent. In that sense, blue was conceptually the perfect colour to illustrate the imaginary architectures I am interested in. Whenever you see something blue in a painting of mine, you might be imagining it, the ‘thing’ might actually be invisible.
This could totally be a projection, but your paintings seem to reckon subconsciously with the landscape of cities. A condensed blueprint recalling their directions. Do you think of space often in terms of cities? And do you find your painting process to be emotional or a place you can be somewhat grounded?
A few weeks ago I decided I wasn’t going to use blue anymore. The decision was more a gradual development than an abrupt tantrum. I had employed blue hues in every single work for almost 6 years, and gradually it had become my go-to, comfort hue. There wasn’t anything interesting about it anymore, it seemed that I had used every single blue I could come up with. Furthermore, the structures I was increasingly documenting were not as abstract or transparent anymore, they were heavier, more real, making blue underrated and odd.
I believe cities are one of the most interesting inventions humans have come up with. They come and go, they expand and contract, they create and annihilate. They are essentially a record of the passage of time. In these terms, I often think of space in terms of time, rather than cities. It is interesting to think how space becomes evidence of a life past lived or a potential new life, how space is the result of layers of time sandwiched together.
As of my painting process, I believe it is very raw and cathartic. It allows me to pour all my messy anxieties into pristine, calculated shapes. The more I paint, the more I understand that I might not be able to square my life and get rid of all the messy borders, but I can at least paint a perfect square to vent about it.
in that way, they do not produce a sudden shock, but aim that through contemplation and detailed observation the viewer be affected. You probably have to look at my work a many few times to get the ‘boom’.
Liminality, the memento, these are some of the concepts with which you’ve titled your work and represented it. Are there big ideas or concepts you are wrestling with right now?
Jesse Leaneagh is an independent writer. He previously oversaw the Walker Art Center’s music, dance and theater programs, as well as the Museum of Modern Art Denver’s visual arts program. During the last year he has been working with Escuela Caracol in Lake Atitlan, supporting indigenous peoples’ access to culture.
Though I might say I am still working around the concept of liminality, I am currently very interested in blueprints. Blueprints are the perfect liminal object, they inhabit this weird gray space where they represent something to be built (something that has the potential to be real), but that is not built yet. There is always a chance that they will remain ideas on paper. Do they become less real if they aren’t built? Or are they real in another kind of dimensional brane (like Plato’s world of Forms). Are blueprints beginnings or endings? Do you ever approach space or materials you work with as charged with “energy”? Museums + galleries in the USA for example, are very preoccupied with pop psychology magic wandtype language now, talking about “activating” art spaces, “engaging” art audiences - yet I see you as more of an engineer mind, clearly connected to material practice. Are there ways you flirt with “magical thinking,” let’s say, in your practice? Of course, I think the energy my work has gained through the process of fabrication, my hand strokes, its colour, and my mood remains in the work through its lifetime. However, I think it is problematic whenever people think of energy as a sudden burst. Energy can also be something that is released slowly, in a kind of ritualistic way. I believe my work and my choice of materials diffuse energy
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This interview was previously published by SCURO Magazine and has been condensed for clarity.
On Mauricio Contreras: The Rejection of Absolutes and the Spectrum of Possible Space The nomadic tribes of the deserts, the eskimos of northernmost America, and the sailors of the seas all live in expansive, mutable spaces. Dunes and waves move with the wind, and landmarks appear and disappear from and out of the horizon. Their arts and science depict these spaces, but unavoidably do so without their defining mutability. Depictions of landscapes represent but a glimpse of scenery grounded in space and time, while a map’s purpose is to strip the space of its organic qualities and quantify it for future use. In these depictions, the difference is lost between the spaces inhabited by nomadic tribes and State spaces, those inhabited by sedentary people and characterized by their metric regularity and orientation. The French philosopher Deleuze describes the spaces these tribes create in the stencil and paper as mixture of the smooth and striated, an in-between. The work of Mauricio Contreras is comfortably interwoven with Deleuze’s “in-between”, as the artist is put in the role of a nomad wandering the expanse of dreams and memory. During his time studying abroad, Mauricio found himself in constant recollection of the life he had left behind. His memories of home kept him connected to the spaces and people he had grown knowing, and in turn, these memories found a way into his dreams. Mauricio takes inspiration for his current work from this encounter: “The images I have created come from memories and dreams, which in turn are born from real spaces that have been amalgamated, assembled, edited, aggregated into a single image by the mind, providing a plurality of points of view at different
points in time -an assemblage- born within the realm of the smooth - the highly fluid, the ever changing.” The product is not fiction, but it could not be found in reality either. Mauricio’s interest is “Liminality”, a term he first came across while studying anthropology. It refers to a point between beginning and end, a space that, in Mauricio’s words is “fundamentally ambiguous because it’s not this or that. In fact, it’s neither, but at the same time both”. Ambiguity, its value and reality, as well as the rejection of absolutes, are central themes in Mauricio’s exploration of the dream space. Unlike the surrealists, whose depictions of dreams are figurative and fluid, Mauricio’s work is built from straight lines and angles. With them, he recalls the technology that is used to describe and quantify the spaces he aims to explore. He constructs, in a most architectural manner, sharp, calculated, and yet impossible dreamscapes on canvas. The lines in his work guide its audience’s eyes towards spaces that exist organically beside each other, traversing and fusing with themselves; and yet the calculated lines give the structures solidity and integrity. The spaces he creates are made of recognizable elements fitting of our reality, yet once put together they become irreconcilable with it. In this way it’s not just the thematic content that exists in the ambiguity between dream and reality, but the composition and technique of the artist are taken from it as well. Mauricio’s choice of materials, like the acrylic gouache, which once dry erases all trace of the artist’s brush stroke, plays a role in this pursuit. Mixed with solid colors and the perfectly straight lines, the result makes it impossible for
the audience to say if Mauricio’s work is digital or manual. Even here, Mauricio strives for ambiguity and avoids absolutes. A finished painting or sculpture is the end of Mauricio’s artistic process, which although an absolute, does not escape the artist’s attention. “The process is as important as the result” says Mauricio, who describes his artistic practice as a time to test the extremes of the conceptual pairs whose confluences house his work: “How would the images of my memory and my dream look like if I added more and more layers of striated space? Would they become a kind of citadel? A prison? Would they lose their apparent smoothness the more constrained they became? Would its humanity be lost the more geometric and constrained they are? Would they still be representations of memories and dreams?” Whatever the result of Mauricio’s play with pairs of idealized absolutes might be, his process thrives in their ambiguous transitional space. It becomes clear Deleuze’s “in-between” is not the point in which the perpendicular lines of absolutes intersect, rather, it is a spectrum of possibility. Liminality is not the creation of a third descriptive option, instead it is the liberation of binary confines. In Mauricio’s work, value is not given to the identification of a piece’s place in the spectrum, but on the way in can flow and inhabit different places throughout it. The same can be said of the way Mauricio expects others to interact with his works. His art is unforgivingly apolitical; it allows the audience freedom, and gives them full responsibility of their
interpretations. Holding an opinion or subjecting his art to a political agenda would defeat the ambiguity he has sought to remain in with such consistency. Ideology is, however, impossible to escape in his aggressive rejection of absolutes and apparent marriage to the spectrum of ambiguity, Mauricio’s apolitical work proves a silent, yet resounding protest to currents which cage reality through the lens of absolutist nomenclature and restrictive binaries. He makes a point by showing us the value of possibility, letting the audience realize how much poorer, fabricated, and even pretentious his depictions of dreams would be if they were to claim to exist in reality or dream alone. If asked if this was the goal of his artistic pursuit, Mauricio would likely deny belonging to any type of protest, regardless of its apparent silence. It is then this correspondent’s opinion that is found above, a glimpse, grounded in space and time, from the vast sea of possibilities the work of Mauricio Contreras asks us to consider. JOSE LUIS QUINTERO, PHD CANDIDATE FOR RHETORIC AND PUBLIC CULTURE AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
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PRAYERS FOR ACCELERATED RELIEF mixta, latex/canvas 150 x 200 cm 2017 $7,500.00
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SMOKED MACHINATIONS (DÍPTICO) mixta, latex/canvas 76 x 51 cm 76 x 101 cm 2017 $1,600.00
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GAME OVER (DÍPTICO) mixta, latex/canvas 71 x 91 cm 76 x 51 cm 2017 $2,500.00
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DIPPING YOUR TOES IN ANGER mixta, latex/canvas 150 x 200 cm 2017 $7,500.00
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HEVEN RENDERED FLAT mixta, latex/canvas 71 x 91cm 2017 $2,500.00
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UNRESPONSIVE DENIALS mixta, latex/canvas 76 x 101cm 2017 $2,500.00
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FOR THOSE WHO CAN STILL WATER THE GRASS mixta, latex/canvas 150 x 200 cm 2017 $7,500.00
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MASOCHISTIC TENDENCIES (TRÍPTICO) mixta, latex/canvas 2 piezas de 122 X 76 cm 1 pieza 101 x 76 cm 2017 $4,500.00
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NUDE DESCENDING INTO THE ABYSS mixta, latex/canvas 150 x 200 cm 2017 $7,500.00
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ALLEGORY OF MONUMENTAL PROPORTIONS mixta, latex/canvas 36 x 46 cm 2017 $900.00
CV/ MAURICIO CONTRERAS-PAREDES EDUCACIÓN 2013 Antropología y Artes Visuales (BFA) [Universidad de Toronto, Canada] EXHIBICIONES INDIVIDUALES 2019 TBD, Swatch Art Peace Hotel [Shanghai, China] 2018 Stages of Grief, Galería Rozas-Botrán [Guatemala, Guatemala] 2016 Memento, Galería Sol del Rio [Guatemala, Guatemala] Liminal Frontier, Americas Collection [Miami, Estados Unidos] 2015 Terra Incógnita, Centro Cultural La Erre [Guatemala, Guatemala] 2014 Latitudes Cariocas, Museo Ixchel [Guatemala, Guatemala] EXHIBICIONES GRUPALES / DOS-PERSONAS 2018 Dependencia in Dependencia 5, Galería Sol del Rio [Guatemala, Guatemala] Desdibujando, Galería Extra [Guatemala, Guatemala] 2017 A1, Bibliothèque Forney [Paris, Francia] Arte 12, Galería Sol del Rio [Guatemala, Guatemala]
Dependencia in Dependencia 4, Galería Sol del Rio [Guatemala, Guatemala] Coleccionable, Galería Rozas Botrán [Guatemala, Guatemala] Coincidencias consecuencias, Galería Sol del Rio [Guatemala, Guatemala] 2016 Untapped, Untapped Art Fair [Toronto, Canada] Arte 12, Galería Sol del Rio [Guatemala, Guatemala] De aquí y de allá, Galería Sol del Rio [Guatemala City, Guatemala] De aquí y de allá, Panza Verde Gallery [Antigua, Guatemala] Galería Abierta, Centro Metropolitano de Arte [ Guatemala City, Guatemala] Dependencia in Dependencia 3, Galería Sol del Rio [Guatemala, Guatemala] Colectiva Junkabal, Edificio Anacafe [Guatemala, Guatemala] 2015 Contemporáneo, Galería Sol del Rio [Guatemala, Guatemala] Colectiva Junkabal, Edificio Anacafé [Guatemala, Guatemala] Banco Promérica / Curada por la galería The Americas Collection [Miami] [Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Republica Dominicana, Islas Caimán, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Miami] Juannio 2015, Museo de Arte Moderno [Guatemala, Guatemala] Forma y Contraforma, Galería Códice [Managua, Nicaragua] 2014 Dependencia Independencia, Galería Sol del Rio [Guatemala, Guatemala] Exhibición y subasta Funsilec [Guatemala, Guatemala] Contexto, Galería Poporopo [Guatemala, Guatemala] 3er Festival del Mural, Cuatro Grados Norte [Guatemala, Guatemala]
2013 Cinco Días, CCE Guatemala [Guatemala, Guatemala] Afterword, Universidad de Toronto [Toronto, Canada] 2010-2012 Eyeball 2012, Universidad de Toronto [Toronto, Canada] Pintura Contemporánea, Consulado de Italia [Guatemala, Guatemala] Todos Arte, Cuatro Grados Norte [Guatemala, Guatemala] Eyeball 2011, Universidad de Toronto [Toronto, Canada] Cabaret Voltaire, Hart House [Toronto, Canada] Eyeball 2010, Universidad de Toronto [Toronto, Canada]
2015-2016 Mural / CEMACO [Guatemala, Guatemala] Mural / Centro Cultural Casa Llerandi [Guatemala, Guatemala] VISA Infinite / diseño de tarjeta / Banco Promérica y VISA Inc. [Latinoamérica] Comisión de textil / Atípico Atypique [Francia] Colaboración imagen / Rota & Jorfida [Milán, Italia y Paris, Francia] Comisión de textil / Distefano Guatemala Mural / Montana Steele [Toronto, Canada] (en proceso) 2014 Murales / Saúl E. Méndez [Guatemala] Murales / Distefano [Guatemala] PUBLICACIONES
RECONOCIMIENTOS 2016 Finalista Untapped Emerging Art Competition [Toronto, Canada] 2013 Harry Shapiro Award (Premio de la Facultad a la clase de Graduación), Universidad de Toronto [Toronto, Canada] 2010 – 2013 Dean List, Universidad de Toronto [Toronto, Canada] 2009 – 2013 John S. Dellandrea Award, Universidad de Toronto [Toronto, Canada] 2012 Innis College Anniversary Award, Universidad de Toronto [Toronto, Canada] 2012 Winifred Florence Hughes Award, Universidad de Toronto [Toronto, Canada]
COMISIONES Y COLABORACIONES 2017-2018 Instalación y residencia / The Swatch Group [Shanghai, China] Mural / AVIA HYATT Hotel [Guatemala, Guatemala]
design-milk.com, Estados Unidos contemporain.com, Francia Revista Gimnasia, Guatemala Revista Itch, Guatemala Instagram Official Blog, Estados Unidos Revista Habitart, Guatemala Revista THY, Guatemala fy-ca.com, Canada Shift Magazine, Canada The Hart House Review, Canada tendensia,com, Guatemala SCURO Magazine, Guatemala LOOK Magazine, Guatemala Catalogo Juannio 2015, Guatemala Thegreydistrict.com, Canada “Guatemala: Memory and Timeless Avant Garde”, Benetton Group, Italia “Life on instagram”, Penguin Random House, Reino Unido
COMITÉ ORGANIZADOR Jose Rozas-Botrán Mariana Solórzano Thelma Castillo María de Botrán Ana Aquil Oscar Lotan Diseño y concepto: María Teresa Fernández Museografía galería: David Urbina © Fundación Rozas-Botrán Guatemala, 2018
@fundacionrozasbotrangt fundacionrozasbotran.org