LARmagazine 010 by LARMAGAZINE

magazine

Publication by Living Art Room. Non-capitals of art

No 010.october, november, december 2012

Director Catalina Restrepo Leongómez catalina@livingartroom.com Editor Daniel Vega serapiu@hotmail.com Design Catalina Restrepo Leongómez catalina@livingartroom.com

Contributors

David Gremard Romero, The Manila Bride , 2012

Adriana Restrepo L. Joaquín Segura Leonardo Ramírez Cartier Bárbara Reyes Daniel Vega

Acknowledgements

Mónica Ashida Berta Cantú Laura Cantú Leo Marz Silvia Palacios Marcela Torres Ibarra Gonzalo Ortega

Photographs

Courtesy od the artist and contributors. OMR galleryy Arena México gallery 2

CONTENT Editorial

006

The non-capitals of the art INTERVIEW

About Skatepark at the MDE11

010

Paulo Licona NEW ARTIST PORTFOLIO

Marcela Varela

030

texto de Catalina Restrepo SPECIAL: Art in Guadalajara and Guanajuato

The Guadalajara Enigma

048

A Trip to the end of the night?

054

ByJoaquín Segura

By Leonardo Ramírez Cartier

ARTIST PORTFOLIO UPDATES

Juan Carlos Delgado David Gremard Romero

062 072

Jasper de Gelder

084

Art from the province

096

Rodrigo Facundo

102

Pablo Cotama

110

Marije Vogelzang

120

About A Scene

132

POLL By Living Art Room RECOMMENDED at L.A galería at MUPO INVITADO ESPECIAL By Adriana Restrepo L. MÚSICA By Daniel Vega

“ THE BUSINESS OF ART IS TO REVEAL THE RELATION BETWEEN MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT” ~DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE https://www.facebook.com/LARlivingartroom

LAS NO CAPITALES DEL ARTE EDITORIAL

bright artist from Monterrey, who at her youthful age of 26 has already been involved in different local institutions. Today she is the exhibition and project coordinator at the Centro de las Artes de Nuevo León. She knows perfectly well the wheeling and dealing of the art circles in Monterrey, and gives us a panoramic view of what’s going on over there, and how the socio-political environment has affected the scene.

This issue of LARmagazine is dedicated to the non-capitals of art. It is a topic that worries me a lot, more so since I’ve been living for the last two months in Monterrey, a city in the North of Mexico that possesses the country’s greatest industrial development. It is a great place where millions are invested in cultural spaces and initiatives, but with an art scene that still seems somewhat scattered. For this 10th Edition, we use one of the most visionary events in Colombia as an example: the Encuentro Internacional de Medellín MDE07 and MDE11, which turns Medellín, the second most important city in Colombia, into an essential source in terms of contemporary art. Not even Bogotá, the capital city, has an encounter this size. Of course the event got the people from the capital thinking and raised the mark for cultural institutions to start organizing themselves and try to reach it. For a better explanation of this point I interviewed Paulo Licona, who in the 2011 festival made one of the most risky projects regarding theme, approach and format. The project was named Skatepark, and you can read about the reactions from the Medellín audience and the government institutions as well in the interview.

Joaquín Segura, a well known Mexican artist, shares us his opinion about the artistic scene in Guadalajara, a city where he lived and produced for the last few years, before his return to Mexico City. He tells us how the city changed upon his arrival and subsequent departure. Another Mexican province where interesting things related to art have been happening for a while is Guanajuato, venue of one of the most important festivals in Latin America: the Festival Internacional Cervantino. Leonardo Ramírez Cartier, a well-known artist and current Visual Arts Coordinator in the Instituo Cultural de León, tells us what’s happening in this city, starting by the social context and enlisting a large number of outstanding local artists from different periods.

We invited Bárbara Reyes, a very young and 6

she achieves a true experience of change in the spectator: it triggers sensations, shoots up the memory, talks about politics, humanity, feelings. As she affirms in an interview, quoting Immanuel Kant, “those who brake bread together are less likley to break each other’s neck”. According to this idea she produces banquets that, more than a simple table served with food, are real happenings where I’m sure more people go out with eyes wide open, more than full stomachs.

This issue originated from a question that seemingly has an obvious answer, but which lives somewhat in the darkness: Is it possible, as an artist, to succeed and have international praise without going through the capital city, Mexico in this case? Is it possible for an artist to have professional success without living, studying, or having some kind of promotion in the capital first, working only from the province? Looking for the place of birth of each of the participants of the X bienal de Monterrey FEMSA and the XV Bienal Tamayo de Pintura, I realized that a lot of the answers given by these art professionals do not seem to match up with the statistics. There have been many stories of provincial artists who succeed, but being objective, they are not so many if we compare them with those from the capital. Apparently it is still something hard in this cybernetic/ blog/facebook age, but before delivering any judgment I invite you to analyze and draw conclusions by yourselves.

Also in this issue we present the new portfolio from Marcela Varela, a young draftswoman from Colombia, and portfolio updates from Jasper de Gelder, David Gremard Romero and Juan Carlos Delgado. Our recommended events are Régimen de Luz y Sombra, an exhibition from artist Rodrigo Facundo, now showing in the L.A. gallery of Bogotá and “Súbito es el colapso, resurjo mutante y permanente” de Pablo Cotama en el Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños.

On the same subject Daniel Vega, our dear editor, talks us about the Seattle music scene in the 90s, a city in the corner of the U. S. where nothing was really happening, and that suddenly became the world capital of alternative rock and grunge, styles that dominated the music scene throughout that decade. Adriana Restrepo presents us Marije Vogelzang, deemed by herself “designer not of food, but of the verb to eat”. Although she does not talk about her work as contemporary art, her proposal is one of the most conceptual, significant and aesthetical that I have ever seen. Using food as a tool,

Catalina Restrepo Directora Living Art Room www.livingartroom.com 7

INTERVIEW WITH PAULO LICONA ON HIS PROJECT Skatepark PRESENTED AT MUSEO DE ANTIOQUIA DURING THE ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL DE MEDELLIN MDE2011. COLOMBIA 10

Skatepark, 2011

El Encuentro Internacional de Medellín (The Medellín International Meeting) (MDE07 and MDE11), developed by the Government of Antioquia and the Museo de Antioquia, gathers international professionals of the art world for a few months to share ideas; a forum to discuss, learn, work and debate. It is, without a doubt, one of the most visionary projects ever done in Colombia, and has already set a precedent for such events in Latin America. Following this issue’s theme, “the non-capitals of art”, I talked with Paulo Licona about his experience creating one of the most prominent projects at MDE11.

by Catalina Restrepo Leongómez

Cata:

Where did the project you made in Medellin come from?

Paulo: I went to Medellin because

of an invitation I received to make a Project related to a specific spot downtown in the city: Morabia, a neighborhood that stood out for having a mountain of trash. What happened was people were being relocated to different neighborhoods. Many people had decided to live there, all the deployed from 1970 onwards. They used to arrive on the transport terminal which was just in front of this dump –it was Medellín’s dump for some time. Actually, those people had a relationship with Pablo Escobar. The idea of the Project, called exsitu-insitu, was to see if one could intervene and see the problems caused by this relocation; they were taking people to different neighborhoods outside Medellín, to the periphery, even though the dump was only 10 minutes from downtown. They made their living from recycling.

of kids. I first invited them to do some piñatas. I asked them if they would miss their homes, since they were being moved to buildings. They had some nostalgia about it, but didn’t worry a lot because they could easily get comfortable. It all started with a reflection about the houses they were losing. We then built a home and a mountain of piñata and made a trip from the dumpster to their new place. We made a little movie about all this, then broke all the piñatas and shared the candies with all the children. The movie showed that same day and I made a song, called

I first decided to get together with a group 13

“La Morrompeta”, that had to do with that garbage “morro” (small hill). The first day I went to Medellín to begin my research for the project, a fella guided me through the barrio and something curious happened: I found some kids that had been living in the garbage mountain but were now living in the new neighborhood; they were building a “club” with some cobblestones, and it resembled the dumpster more than their new place. It was a club for children ages 6 to 12. I asked them to let some more children and me in, but they said they couldn’t, since the club was private. Then, with the other children, we gathered some materials and built another club as a way of challenging them. The idea of the club stayed in my head.

their homes back in the dumpster. I talked to them and started organizing a series of events. Besides, the construction was a copy of a cultural center in the same neighborhood, one of the last constructions made by Rogelio Salmona, an important Colombian architect. That

“children could go and play, but it had a number of rules and prohibitions that seemed to me hard and limiting” cultural center, the original one, seemed funny to me; despite of it being an open place where children could go and play, but it had a number of rules and prohibitions that seemed to me hard and limiting for the neighborhood. They were being contained.

I was later invited again to Medellín. I decided to start a larger project based on building another club (that’s where the relationship with “school” appeared, although it wasn’t meant to be called that way) just for children. They had to establish the rules themselves, and the main one was that no adults were to be let in; I was the only one, and was named janitor. The construction was made with all the demolished material left from

Our construction lasted two months and a great amount of events were held, such as drawing. They decided what had to happen.

Cata: And were those rules written? I

mean, they did a list of rules first?

Paulo: No, everything was

very colloquial. There was a center in the club surrounded by stones that we painted, so we held meetings in front of them to discuss the rules and what was needed to become a member. Kids talked about respect. They also said that a club had to have a football field, a pool; that in a club you have to eat and exchange words. We then made parties. I bought pools that I installed above, in the dumpster (where there was no water) and I had to ask the firefighters to help me climb there to fill them. Another time, one of the kids told me that clubs had IDs, so they drew their faces themselves. It was a lot of fun.

had the energy to do it, they didn’t have to wait for someone from outside to do it for them. I thought about the kids, their strength, and asked them if they wanted more club. “ Yes, don’t go”, they answered. I told them I had to go on with my life, but also reminded them they already had 80 friends. I asked them to fight hard for it.

The end of the project was a decision I made with the children after discovering a project by Alfredo Jaar in Germany’s Paper Museum. Alfredo built a museum out of paper. In the end he asked: “do you want your museum?” He proceeded to burn it down and said “then build it”. What he meant was that it didn’t concerned him. I wanted to let them know that if they

Cata: And they continued? Paulo: I destroyed a large part of the

construction and they started doing things over the ruins. But there was no one in charge because their parents wouldn’t let them climb, so the thing started to

dilute. I then designed some interactive posters; they were had to go on with my life, but also round, came in a tube and they already had had cutout pieces to assemble a club. I spread them 80 I asked them to through the nearby schools for it. in Comuna 4, between Aranjuez and Campo Valdés. authority such as “Shut up! Sit down!” I It was nice, since many children knew the believe a certain amount of authority is history of the club and started recognizing not bad at all, but this was more a showing and seeing themselves differently. The of authoritarianism that generated me a teachers were there while the posters were lot of questions. That is when the idea of distributed, but were imposing to them working with problem children came to all the time with expressions of fear and me.

“I reminded them friends.

fight hard ”

Paulo: That’s exactly what I loved about

That was it for the Medellín thing. I distributed around 3000 posters in 12 schools, all grades; it was a big deal. I told them the same story and loved it because I really made it into every school. I think what made this project sweet was that it needed no justification in the art world or guild, because I wasn’t planning to show it in a gallery; it was to remain in the community. I distributed posters elsewhere, always with the concern of really working with the people, since results are sometimes sad when one ends up stealing from the individuals. I liked it because it all went back to them. My only reward was experience, which led me – besides leaving me thinking about working with the people in Bogotá- to want to develop an interest for spreading seeds and creating devices for people to do things.

it. There are two things: one, you’re not making a project to justify it in the art world; and two, these kinds of projects are valued to a certain degree where they can receive funding. In my case, it was a governmental entity. Art is a very efficient weapon; you can do the most unimaginable things. Those who supported me had faith in art as a tool not only to generate a certain kind of knowledge, but to attain new ways to stimulate kids, make them experience new things. I realized I could enter many places without permission. The very fact of working with children gave me a very strong mental impulse on a different level, a creative force that can create, like the children, a simple

Cata: Talking about what you say

about art, specifically that you loved the fact that the project needed no validation from the art guild, I suppose you had some institutional funding, at least with the permits, be it through the Antioquia Museum or the Encounter itself, right? 17

drawing. But you have to enter that experience so the kids can have the time of their lives, so they can somehow be free, and that is art’s incredible power. What happened in some schools was that some teachers said: “don’t give a poster to that kid cause he behaved badly”, as if the worse students couldn’t receive anything. But I wasn’t rewarding anyone, and the teachers did not understand hose who me had faith that. Then I asked myself, why are in as a not only to generate a these students certain kind of but to attain not going to new school? Why do they behave this I decided to make a test –after being way? That led me invited to the MDE11- to see if there to think that the power was right there, was a stigmata, specially in Medellín, that these kids had a lot to say but were with the skaters. They were inviting me repressed or had issues. to do a project, but it had to be inside the museum. Besides, that MDE’s theme was They had to take it all out one way or another, but not by punishment or orders. the problem of teaching and learning in art places. I knew the museum’s type of That’s when the idea started to form that audience, but started to research among I wanted to create a school for quitters, the skaters anyway; to them, the museum vandals, dealers, etc.; in other words, was a boring place, and I thought that if the worst possible student population.

“T art

supported tool knowledge,

ways ”

as: What does it mean for a blackboard to be on the floor so you can step on it? The blackboard has always worked vertically, and as a symbol of knowledge. Why can’t you step on knowledge and break it? I also made a number of chalk objects like a boxing glove and a punchball, what suggested an imminent break. Another piece was a bowling lane made with chalk. All the pieces suggested an imminent failure. It was thanks to this project that I got invited to the MDE11.

the kids were carrying this stigmata, my goal was to make the museum a second home for them. I named it Little School of Evil, thinking of students with the stigmata of being bums –specially with the skaters-, since the majority were school deserters. For them, the skate park becomes a place where they can discharge all their hate, anguish, and a bunch of things. I made a ramp in the museum for the skaters to paint, plus some painting zones, and the cool thing was that the project activated by itself. Kids controlled the space and there was no one who could tell them anything was wrong; they cleaned and mopped the place and took care of the small children, since the museum had disassociated from any responsibility.

Cata: So you made the skate track in the MDE11?

Paulo: Yes, I took a lot of chalk and had

many boxes left, that the skaters could use to draw over some paper boards (4000, approximately). Since not everyone could skate simultaneously, some drawed while waiting for their turn. Everything went on with independence and tranquility. Even the museum’s prevention towards the kid’s behavior was unnecessary since, thanks to the project, the museum had its higher attendance ever.

Cata:

Did you get invited to the MDE because of this project?

Paulo: : It was for a project I did in

2009 called Tizódromo, a sort of “sports complex” created from educational tools, materials as chalk and blackboards. The project gravitated around the absurd and failure, inverting the scholar elements. I was interested in making questions such

Cata: How did you perceive the

audience? Not the one you were working

with, which of course attended massively, but the general public: art students or families attending the museum. How did they approach the project? What do you think about the Medellín audience?

Paulo: Young audiences suddenly wanted to learn to use a board so they could enter. There was a part of the adult audience (not necessarily art scholars) that seemed fascinated with the fact that they could interact differently in the museum, since they approached it looking for workshops for children or ladies. But people could come and draw, it was an open space where they could say something else and they loved that.

The more professional audiences were asking if this was art. They also were asking things like: what’s the idea behind putting a ramp inside a museum and fill it with skaters? They thought it was too literal towards the education theme. If a person goes to a museum to skate, wouldn’t they prefer to see a painting? I mean, what gives value to a museum? Is it paintings and sculptures? Or maybe that isolation that people ends up taking. Education in a museum is something very strong that may inhibit many of the audience’s expressions. 20

Tizódromo, 2009

weight is evident and that’s fine; but the conservative is afraid to be irreverent with his culture. Everything has a double meaning and it may seem a joke; it’s something that is blocked, something genetic. The conservative can not remove that stigma.

I loved the resolution of the Project, since the skaters themselves ended up walking and contemplating art pieces, something they had never done before. Obviously, any damage to the pieces was avoided while they skated. I think the devices I activated with this piece ended up taking a large part of the public; any person was able to take the board to their house and draw in it. There were no restrictions.

Cata: Do you think that institutions in

Medellín are more open than in Bogotá? I mean, the MDE and the Antioquía Museum supported your project, even if it is not a conventional painting or sculpture. They have funded other projects with different formats like Hector Zamora’s, or Miler Lagos’. Is this a sign that they are being more receptive and have riskier, “out there” proposals?

Cata: Do you think the specialized

audience in Medellín needs to open their minds a lot more? I say this for the fact of questioning if this is art or not, something that is evidently generating processes and artistic thoughts.

Paulo: I think it is a bit more closed

Paulo: I think that result is generated on

because of their education, not for the fact that there are no spaces. The Museum is incredible, very big. The town hall actually has a great variety of programs to keep museums free. There are not a lot of galleries in Medellín, but there are five art schools. I mean, the aim of MDE is to open wider the art scene, however, I feel that the conservative spirit is a lot more powerful than the understanding of art. All that tradition, all that cultural

a curatorship level, which is the strongest thing the MDE ever had, in my opinion. The perception is low, since they don’t stay long in Medellín, but the reading is made easily, since they are activating this kind of dislocations. Now, there is also a fight between curatorial idea and the project’s production, logistic and execution dilemma. The idea you have is one thing and the curators may agree with

it, but the execution is a different thing. to do with ruins, working with residues I realized that when you put the artist’s and problem kids. I had all my material work in action, the curators approve, but and work from eight years stored in a the institutions restrict certain points workshop, and took it to the gallery of to take care of their backs, following a very classic idea of he aim of MDE is to protection. In the end, it was a little bit difficult to explain the art scen, however, I feel that the the production people –or is a the director herself- what was going on. lot more than the

“t

About what you say, I feel there are not many risks been taken in Colombia’s art. I’m not talking about political art, but about art where questions are raised. I feel a certain warmness in the scene, a fear of rejection. Artists find it hard to lose that ego. There is a lot of gentlemanship around. It’s like a scary ghost and I find it hilarious since, on the contrary, you should invite the ghost to eat, laugh your ass off and take advantage of it to be a bit more risky. That is what I’ve learned from the school.

open wider

conservative spirit powerful understanding of art”.

the Chamber of Commerce. I decided to use the money from the inauguration to buy more tools and materials to take ten kids in morning and evening turns. The objective was for them to take my work, boards, chalks, sculptures, and to create whatever they wanted with it. There were no rules. Again, I took the job of janitor, the one who simply taught them how to use the tools, without any kind of interference at all. I only named the project: The Scholastic Hell. I was lucky to have the kids collaborating thanks to an educational program from the Chamber of Commerce. I had a great surprise when, in the end, the kids didn’t want to leave.

Santiago Rueda invited me to the exhibition space in Bogota’s Chamber of Commerce and I had this idea circling my mind since the Medellin Project. It had 22

when we encouraged them to materialize their ideas, their hate disappeared. That is exactly the power that we must take advantage of, and direct it towards generating mobile schools. That’s what I want to do right now, to make the school move around, almost as a hot dog cart with a blackboard.

There was no conflict, no rules, not even language rules. I mean, they had to respect each other, but could express themselves any way they wanted and it was curious since, among the “son of a bitch, gonorrhea, bitch”, the bad words started to take a tender tone. One gives category and weight to the language. It was very rich because I felt that, apart from getting the weight off from all I had in my workshops, kids were liberating themselves too, were getting loose and making incredible things like coffins, crosses, a little car, a fake guitar, football fields and dolls.

Something I was thinking, that you rightly called “out there”, was to put the carts in front of public schools for all those kids that are always late and waiting there to punch the others. That way we would show those schools that you can do schooling differently, thinking about what is needed to do about the kid’s knowledge.

There was another condition, that eight days after a group finished came another one. I said: “look, the next group could come and destroy what you’re about to do”, Cata: That’s incredible! Is that what to what they answered: “doesn’t matter!” you’re planning for next year? But when the other group came, knowing they could do whatever they wanted, Paulo: No, I’ve already started. I’m they turned out to be the most respectful reflecting on the experience: what the heck people. Everything we believed about happened? What is the solid aspect of it? the stigmata of these boys was false, and I’m starting to design the cart and doing tests, planning to mong the , go out with it one day and stand in front of a school, gonorrhea, bitch”, the someplace where I can do started to take a something with the kids.

“a

“son of a bitch bad words tender tone”. 23

I think we are in the phase of doing things, not just sitting and talking. I want to show the kids that there are tools, and they can do what whatever they want with them. I believe in their intuition, I want to encourage them to lose that fear. A thing you were asking, that has always been said, is that fear of approaching a museum. It’s true, some paintings are intimidating, but the problem is the fear before approaching and standing in front of them.

“Everything we believed about the stigmata of these boys was false” Cata: There is also this ambient in

the museums (although maybe this belongs to a different discussion) that draws people away because it makes them feel stupid, a lack of knowledge to understand the absolute grace and genius of the exhibited artists. Seldom there is a text at the entrance of the exhibitions –an almost insulting one- that recurs to affected words and concepts such

as “abstract post minimalism” or “the yuxtaposition of I-don’t-know-what”. All of this makes a person think: “I am the fool, not the curator”. That makes people stay away forever.

Paulo: Well that’s the idea. What I was 24

Cata: Schools generally have that

attitude. These two institutions that teach and supposedly transmit knowledge, they scare with their methods and language. A student who’s not doing very well may think that if he does not understand the lesson, he is dumb, not that the teacher is wrong. That’s the interesting part of the project, since it doesn’t part from pointing at the bum, the stubborn, the dumb, the one who needs to be expelled, but it analyzes how that education may be understandable to everyone for them to take something valuable from it. I was the typical bum, every year, so maybe that’s why I feel identified with the project (laughs). When are you planning to show it?

Paulo: Next holidays I’ll be making the

Skatepark, 2011

pilot, the car and all the designs. The idea is for it to start moving in early 2013, probably doing the first trials in January, when school is in.

trying to say is, at the end of the project I realized that it can almost run by itself, provided there is a pilot and it can be reproduced. Not that I’m the professor, but that they themselves assume an attitude towards what they want. The idea is that, in the end, they are open and conscious so the school can grow by itself.

There is a great advantage: I love teaching. I considered myself a son of a bitch teacher: rude, imposing and grumpy: I’m a contradiction. But I have a lot of 25

art students and I love that they can link to the project to set it out as a chained problem. I proposed my students to go and talk with the kids from those schools, since I discovered the trick was to collect different spheres of education: from the youngest student, the medium one, and then the grown up, so we can erase the idea that only when you are “grown up” you can make something. Yes, there can be differences in knowledge, but what I find interesting is that a kid that is out of school can, immediately, share a lot of knowledge with another one who is still studying. The same happens with the college student. It’s hard for education to change on a governmental level and sure, teachers sometimes go on strike and fight for a better situation, something I find great. But what I learned through my studies is that you should not expect anything from anyone. If you keep waiting for the teacher to teach, you will not learn. And that is the greatest of all rules: don’t expect, ever.

Inferno Escolástico, 2011

Cata: Wow, that’s really incredible. I’ll be on first row to see the project when you finish it.

NEW ARTIST PORTFOLIOS Marcela Varela (Colombia)

Drawings HPF, kuskus 2011 2010

MARCELA VARELA