Happenings

Artists: José Castrellón, Óscar Figueroa, Group Material, Regina José Galindo, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Andreas Seikmann, Michael Stevenson, Humberto Vélez.

A Chronicle of Interventions
May 2 – July 13, 2014
Tate Modern
London, UK

Tate Modern’s Project Space presents the exhibition A Chronicle of Interventions, a curatorial-collaboration between Tate Modern in London and TEOR/éTica in San José, Costa Rica. The exhibition explores the multiple histories of intervention that have occurred throughout Central America during the 20th century through the work of eight practicing artists who each address various foreign, economic, political and military interventions which have shaped the region.

Harking back to 1980s New York, during the Reagan-Thatcher era, the exhibition begins with an archival display of the seminal installation by Group Material, entitled Timeline: A Chronicle of US Intervention in Central and Latin America, the work was originally installed in New York’s PS 1 Gallery in 1984, when Central America was in the spotlight of political and economic debate in the West. Fast forward thirty years and the exhibition returns to this history of intervention and its consequences, through the work of contemporary artists who chronicle related historical episodes, accounts and phenomena.

Two of the films found on display refer back to U.S. colonialism in Panama and more specifically to the building of the Panama Canal. Humberto Vélez focuses on the metaphor of the subjected human body and the representation of power and strength over a nation, while Michael Stevenson explores the probability of reality and fiction under the context of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties in 1977—which promised the handover of the Canal Zone to the Central American country.

The works of Óscar Figueroa and Andreas Siekmann separately address the existence of a mono-cultural economy based almost exclusively on the extraction of bananas and coffee and the impact that international corporations such as the United Fruit Company have had on the natural and social landscape of much of this region. The performance work of Regina José Galindo confronts the torrid history of Guatemala and its hidden genocide. Her explorations of unequal power relations often expose the violent consequences that regularly result from political and economic interventions.

This exhibition also explores the effects that external intervention can have on cultural aesthetics and social behaviour. This includes examples of both the infiltration and appropriation of contemporary ‘Western culture’ in remote indigenous communities, as seen in the work of José Castrellón and the imposition or adaptation of international architectural styles, which are boldly displayed and eventually destroyed during the performance work of Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa.

A Chronicle of Interventions is curated by Shoair Mavlian (Tate Modern) and Inti Guerrero (TEOR/éTica)

Artists: Jonathan Binet, Nathan Peter, Pablo Rasgado, Karin Sander

Translation Movement
April 26, 2014
Travesía Cuatro
Madrid, Spain

Artists: Octavio Abúndez, Adrián S. Bará, Edgar Cobián, José Dávila, Mauricio Cadena, Adrián Guerrero, Cynthia Gutiérrez, Enrique Hernández, Gonzalo Lebrija, Mario Navarro, Fernando Palomar, Gabriel Rico, Javier M. Rodríguez, Paula Silva, Emanuel Tovar, Francisco Ugarte, Luis Alfonso Villalobos, Sebastián Vizcaíno.

Architects: Andrés Aguilar, Marco Amilcar Sánchez, Aldo Álvarez Tostado + Diego Flores, Marco Betancourt, Javier Dueñas, Alejandro Guerrero + Andrea Soto, Óscar Gutiérrez, León Leroy, Rodrigo Loaiza, Juan López Newton, Salvador Macías + Magui Peredo, Javier Monteón, Álvaro Moragrega, Rafael Plascencia, Jorge Rivera, Francisco Solórzano, Alberto Villar + Gerardo Villar, Pablo Zamudio.

Leviatán
March 28 – June 29, 2014
Curator: Jorge Tejeda
Museo de Arte Raúl Anguiano (MURA)
Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico

Artists: Andrea Aragón, Hellen Ascoli, Victoria Bahr, Marlov Barrios, Marilyn Boror, Edgar Calel, Johanna Calle, Mariana Castillo Deball, Marco Canale, Benvenuto Chavajay, Manuel Chavajay, René Dionisio Chavajay (Tz´utu B´aktun Kan), Jorge Chavarría, Lourdes de La Riva, Jorge de León, Yavheni de León, Diana de Solares, Yasmin Hage, Quique Lee, María Evelia Marmolejo, Silvia Menchú, Andrea Monroy Palacios, Reyes Josué Morales, Carlos Motta, Nora Pérez, Manuel Antonio Pichillá, Feliciano Pop, Angel Poyón, Fernando Poyón, Naufus Ramírez, Nuno Ramos, José Alejandro Restrepo, Gabriel Rodríguez, Chemi Rosado Seijó, Diego Sagastume, Mario Santizo, Julio Serrano, Rosario Sotelo, Adán Vallecillo, Inés Verdugo.

Transvisible
19 Bienal de Arte Paiz (entre lo ya no y el aún no / between a no longer and not yet)
Fundación Paiz para la Educación y la Cultura
June 6 – July 6, 2014
Guatemala

The 19 Bienal de Arte Paiz, in its 2014 edition,  proposes a platform that relativizes  notions of model, universality, genealogy and linearity, in favor of an art that reveals itself in transition, between “a no longer and not yet”. This, within a process of critical thinking and investigation of reality and art as it is manifested in contemporary Guatemala. The “transvisible” constitutes the possibility of mediating and investigating other realities beyond established canonical notions about art.

Themes:
Self Knowledge – Healing
Body-Territory
Specificities that name themselves
Masculinity and violence

Curators:
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill
Anabella Acevedo
Rosina Cazali
Pablo Ramírez

Artists: Leonor Antunes, Alexander Apóstol, Alexandre Arrecha, Felipe Arturo, Alessandro Balteo Yazbek, Alberto Baraya, Carlos Bunga, Los Carpinteros, Jordi Colomer, Livia Corona, Felipe Dulzaides, Magdalena Fernández, Fernanda Fragateiro, Carlos Garaicoa, Mario García Torres, Terence Gower, Patrick Hamilton, Quisqueya Henríquez, Diango Hernández, Andre Komatsu, Runo Lagomarsino, Pablo León de la Barra, Maria Martínez-Cañas, Daniela Ortiz, Jorge Pardo, Manuel Piña, Ishmael Randall-Weeks, Mauro Restiffe, Pedro Reyes and Chemi Rosado-Seijo.

Beyond the Supersquare: On Modernism
May 1, 2014 – January 11, 2015
Bronx Museum
Bronx, NY, USA

The indelible influence of Latin American and Caribbean modernist architecture on contemporary artists will be explored by The Bronx Museum of the Arts in the exhibition Beyond the Supersquare, on view May 1, 2014 through January 11, 2015. The exhibition features 30 artists and more than 60 artworks—including photography, video, sculpture, installation, and drawing—that respond to major Modernist architectural projects constructed in Latin America and the Caribbean from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beyond the Supersquare examines the complicated legacies of Modernist architecture and thought—as embodied by the political, economic, environmental, and social challenges faced by countries throughout Latin America—through the unique perspective of artists working today.

The exhibition represents the culmination of a four-year research initiative at the Bronx Museum spearheaded by Executive Director Holly Block and Independent Curator María Inés Rodriguez. Many of the exhibition themes have grown out of a three-day conference held at the Bronx Museum in October 2011, during which artists, architects, urban planners, and scholars convened to discuss the enduring impact of Modernist architecture and ideas in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Beyond the Supersquare explores how contemporary artists from Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions have responded to the aggressive rise of Latin America’s urban centers and the ways in which those urban areas have evolved since the mid-20th century. Also examined is the social critique of political, social, economic, and environmental issues in Latin America and the Caribbean, including unstable economies, ad hoc urbanism, militarized police forces, and rapidly exhausting natural resources. Exhibition designer Benedeta Monteverde of Mexico City has worked closely with the two curators to generate the exhibit plan for the galleries at the Bronx Museum.

Beyond the Supersquare will be accompanied by a volume, co-published by The Bronx Museum of the Arts and Fordham University Press, featuring original scholarship by noted Latin American architects, historians, and curators. Beyond the Supersquare: Art & Architecture after Modernism in Latin America will include material presented at the Museum’s 2011 Beyond the Supersquare conference led by Ms. Block and Ms. Rodríguez. The advisors for the conference were Carlos Brillembourg (Carlos Brillembourg Architects), Felipe Correa (Somatic Collaborative and Harvard Graduate School of Design), Ana Maria Duran (Estudio A0), Belmont Freeman (Belmont Freeman Architects), Jose Lira (University of Sao Paulo), Ligia Nobre (Independent Curator), and Pedro Reyes (Artist).

The volume will also include an image-rich folio highlighting artworks from the exhibition. Drawing from architectural projects of the 1940s to the 1960s, as well as from socially engaged artistic practices of the present day, the anthology will examine the consequences of the heroic and utopian ideals popular in architectural discourse during the Modernist era, which are evident in the vastly uneven economic conditions and socially disparate societies found throughout the region today