Neo-Kitsch: A New Old Latin America

NEO-KITSCH A New Old Latin America

Introduction “Neo-Kitsch: A New Old Latin America” presents four Latin American artists who utilize kitsch objects and symbology to refer to the colonial, social, cultural, and political history of Latin America.

Chiachio & Giannone (Argentina), Liliana Correa (Colombia), Los Hermanos De la Torre (Mexico), Mauricio Garrido (Chile), Becky Guttin (Mexico), Tatewaki Nio (Brazil), Panca (Mexico) and Esteban Schimpf (Colombia) present a broad perspective of what it means to be Latin American today.

While conceptual art emerged in Europe at the beginning of the Great War, it didn’t reach Latin America until the beginning of the 1970s. Most of this work was derived as a response to politics and internal conflicts–much in the way that conceptual art began with a world war–that were the result of a history of violence and colonialism.

The strong identification with indigenous identity and Spanish history produced a cultural conglomeration, produced many objects, materials, and colors that often refer to Latin America and, with more regional knowledge, to a specific country. Today, conceptual artists–from two or three generations after those who exhibited in the 1970s–exude this cultural conglomeration in order to understand and represent the constant changes that it means for Latin America’s development. *** Kitsch objects give testament to the long cultural history of each country and are often considered gaudy or ironic. They also act as symbols or remind the viewer of a forgotten past. In Latin America, examples of kitsch items may include knitted blender covers, placemats, images or models of Macaws, still-life paintings of fruits, horses, donkeys, or farmers, virgin of Guadalupe candles and figurines, portraits of Jesus, indigenous handcrafts, or images of political figures.

Through the use of symbols or techniques, the artists presented in “Neo-Kitsch” explore their own personal history, art history, and localized cultural identity. Most of the artists reference a more storied past, whether coming from a thousand-year old indigenous group or a collection of images from European Baroque art. They incorporate a contemporary practice through their appropriation of imagery and styles (collage, embroidery, direct photography, and digital collage), often introducing bright colors and objects that specifically refer to their local or regional culture.

-- Andrew Ütt, Associate Director “Neo-Kitsch” will be presented at Sergott Contemporary from July 22 to August 27, 2016.

List of Artists Chiachio & Giannone (Argentina) Liliana Correa (Colombia) Los Hermanos De la Torre (Mexico) Mauricio Garrido (Chile) Becky Guttin (Mexico & USA) Tatewaki Nio (Brazil) Panca (Mexico) Esteban Schimpf (Colombia & USA)

Chiachio & Giannone Chiachio & Giannone are Leo Chiachio and Daniel Giannone. Both Argentinian they live and work together in Buenos Aires. Originally trained in painting they moved into hand embroidery where they use a dazzling array of colour and stitches as they redefine the traditional family portrait into a riot of colour and technique.

Epic in scale, their work incorporates elements of magical realism and a sense of humour. They simultaneously reflect the changes in society while demonstrating an encyclopaedic knowledge of stitch.

Embroidered tapestry

Liliana Correa Barroco Tropical (Tropical Baroque) attempts to establish relationships between common jobs and art, taken on from the configuration of the tradition family, identity and folklore. The images make up family portraits: fathers that have cultivated their sons in their own image, sons that have inherited a job from their fathers, a job that provides them with economic stability and allowed them to grow, with the firm idea of prolonging this activity generation after generation. The portraits are accompanied by a frame made of quotidian elements that represent the job; flowers and fruits for farmers, flowers made of meat, scales and knives for the butchers and the objects and graphic elements that decorate the traditional Chivas, or trucks that transport people and/or cargo from MedellĂ­n to the small towns.

Pigment Prints on Paper

De la Torre The De la Torre brothers inhabit a multicultural, polyglot world, creating works that serve as delightful and thought-provoking funhouse mirrors that distort reality in comical and subversive ways. Whether it’s a reflection of the increasing diversity of athletes in American sports in Nazcar Dad or an homage to the violent Oaxaca rebellion in 2006 through zAppo, the brothers let their imaginations run wild, exploring everything from the cultural significance of fusion cuisine and the deeper side of pop culture to the intersection between Mexican and American cultures and politics. One of the more popular pieces is La Reconquista, a dazzling spin on Renaissance paintings by Hans Memling with such varied figures as Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helú and Spanish actor Antonio Banderas that it looks like the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s album cover. In Pho’Zole, the artists use ethnic cuisine to reflect on Southern California’s spin on the American melting pot. The wall mural mixes porcelain dishes of pho, an Asian noodle soup, with pozole, a similar stew from Mexico. A diptych of robots entitled Tula frontera norte and Tula frontera sur meld blown glass, resin castings, and a slew of found objects (the artists love dollar stores) to express culture both north and south of the border. Tula frontera sur features resin-covered stuffed frogs reminiscent of souvenirs, a glass human heart, two basket-woven figures carrying guns and bullet belts, liquor bottles in the headdress, and a taxidermy raccoon. A TV set in the glass torso screens a video performance by Tijuana-based artist Hugo Sanchez depicting craft items also in the piece from Michoacán, Mexico (Tula frontera norte holds objects from Kansas City).

Blown glass, cast resin with inclusions

Mauricio Garrido The world of the visual artist Mauricio Garrido is surrealist, exuberant, complex and dark at the same time.

The majority of the time, his work has been categorized as neo-Baroque and takes on various forms of expression, such as sculpture, collage, textiles and video art. His work reviews codes of representation throughout the history of art, and is particularly centered on the figure as allegory as a method of synthesized narration. The idea of found materials has been present as a way of transitioning towards an existence of a visual operandi. His work is made from the collection of found papers in the diverse regions of the world where he has travelled especially to find them. Recently, those papers were collected by the world and his art took the form of a trip. His artwork has been exhibited in Europe, Asia and Latin America and can be found in important public and private collections. He is currently preparing a monumental showing of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chile (MAC Quinta Normal).

Collage

Becky Guttin Becky Guttin utilizes a broad array of materials to construct work that tells stories about the home, family and identity. Growing up in Mexico City, her family used many pre-industrial, organic objects; items that are utilized repeatedly throughout her artwork. Los Trapitos is a series of trapitos (dishrags) that have been embroidered with dichos (sayings) from her family and are commonly spoken throughout Latin America. Surrounding the dichos are kitsch items representing Mexico’s indigenous and colonial past, from ceramic pots to day of the dead skeletons to religious crosses. Collectively, the series represents a contemporary Latin America with roots both in the pre-industrial age and its pre-Columbian history.

Mixed media on textile

Tatewaki Nio Neo-andina is on-going project about the architectural phenomenon in El Alto city of Bolivia. The satellite city of La Paz, has 858,000 inhabitants and today 74% of the population is Aymara origin. El Alto is known as the Aymara capital of the world. After the inauguration of president Evo Morales in 2006 new bourgeoisie of Aymara emerged in Bolivia, particularly in El Alto. With accumulated wealth, increased the number of rich Aymaras that build their houses decorated with vivid colors and peculiar style of ornaments that feature exaggerated ethnic identity and status. Generally, the buildings aggregate shops on the lower floors and a house for the owner family on the upper floors. Many buildings contain on their middle floors huge party rooms, rented for events. The high demand for the new architecture is changing the monotonous aspect of brick houses cityscape of El Alto, and has become a unique urban phenomenon. Neo-andina project produces photographs about the phenomenon and the ceremonial custom of the new bourgeois as a case of contemporary urban cultural manifestation developed by a native ethnic group in South America.

Pigment print on Paper

PANCA Acrylic on Wood

Esteban Schimpf At the age of five, Esteban Schimpf moved from Bogotรก, Colombia to Chicago where he was raised and went to school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His studies focused on contemporary, avant-garde concepts while Schimpf was more classical and historical in his approach. His photographs meld baroque landscape and the renaissance portrait, creating a post-photographic impression of color, portraiture, and kitsch. Each of these investigations is an extrapolation from his homeland, a place of unknown familial history that has guided him subconsciously into building a new invented landscape and peoples.

Pigment prints on paper

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