Artists: Omar Rodríguez-Graham, Sandra Nakamura
Ouroboros
Omar Rodríguez-Graham
Dominio In Urgente
Sandra Nakamura
September 19, 2014
Arróniz Arte Contemporáneo / Gallery Weekend Mexico City
Mexico City, Mexico
Ouroboros
This exhibit by Omar Rodriguez-Graham is articulated under the premise that everything changes. Thus, the constructions of the present are cemented on the wreckage of the phantoms from the past, which distort memories, destroy narratives and create renewed histories. The works of the artists are cannibalistic in nature: they are based on iconic images of Western painting, taking over their outlines, while reassembling the abstract compositions granting them new parameters. This way, the work goes beyond figurations and restores them, rendering them unrecognizable. However, the artist does not infringe the pictorial restrictions, nor move away from a transcendental idea in art: all acts of destruction are acts of creation.
Dominio In Urgente
The day this exhibit opened was the anniversary of the 1985 earthquake, an impossible detail to ignore for Nakamura. The artist thus investigated the memory inscribed in the soil of Mexico City, seeking to comprehend (at a distance) a place she has never been to. For Juan Villoro, the memory of water is an essential element in the imagery of the city. The works that make up this exhibit have as a starting point, archived photographs, survivor testimonies, seismological reports and topographic maps. They also recover the image of underground water to suggest change, referencing the moment in which, according to seismologist Cinna Lomnitz, Mexico City became a lake again.