Abstraction in Action Óscar Figueroa: Acciones Territoriales https://abstractioninaction.com/happenings/oscar-figueroa-acciones-territoriales/

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Artists: Astrovandalistas, Brian Mackern, Carolina Caycedo, Claudia del Fierro, Enrique Arriaga, Gala Porras-Kim, Gilda Mantilla & Raimond Chaves, Hillary Mushkin, Juan Caloca, Juan Pablo Macías, Luis G. Hernández, Los ingrávidos, Mauricio Palos, Oscar Figueroa Chaves, Ricardo Díaz, and Yollotl Manuel Gómez Alvarado.

Acciones Territoriales
November 5 – 19, 2014
ExTeresa Arte Actual
Mexico City, Mexico

La presente curaduría explora y esquematiza algunas de las distintas formas en que sociedades, comunidades y personas han imaginado y configurado sus territorios como resistencias a un sistema capitalista neoliberal dominante.
Esta muestra, reconoce las implicaciones históricas del Ex Teresa como espacio de experimentación artística. En ese sentido, la revisión y lectura de la curaduría Terreno peligroso/Danger Zone, 1995 (Los Ángeles y Ciudad de México), la cual hace eco en las reflexiones que se plantean en esta curaduría.
Se ha comisionado un despliegue de proyectos artísticos que responden de manera crítica a fundamentos territoriales de la crisis sistémica actual, prácticas artísticas que se vinculan con otros campos de conocimiento y la acción colectiva. Para reforzar estos lazos se han creado dos puentes: los Conversatorios que funcionan como espacios de reflexión colectiva entre público y actores sociales y los Talleres que son espacios abiertos de acción colectiva.
Acciones Territoriales invita a explorar la idea de territorio y sus resistencias bajo cuatro nodos entrelazados: La idea de territorio como Estado-Nación, Resistencias a través de la memoria, Territorios transitables y en tránsito y Vida cotidiana: imaginarios, representaciones y lenguaje.

 

Un fenómeno dominante en México, al igual que en América Latina, y otras partes del mundo; es la facilidad con que el proyecto Neoliberal ha permitido que los Estados y sus alianzas con compañías transnacionales, invadan y exploten territorios sin ninguna consideración a las comunidades que los habitan. Estos desmedidos ejercicios de poder han provocado acciones de resistencia que tratan de revertir estos actos violentos. Algunos responden, dada la urgencia de la situación, desde la misma anquilosada concepción de territorio usada por el Estado; otros, como algunos grupos indígenas, buscan constantemente elaborar una resistencia más compleja, fundada en su historia, cultura, su relación con el espacio habitado y la inclusión de ideas contemporáneas.
Acciones territoriales, es entonces una invitación a dialogar y encontrar otros caminos posibles para entender nuestra situación actual que se vincula con otras miradas y territorios, una invitación a realizar acciones territoriales.

 

Daniela Lieja Quintanar

 

TERRITORIAL ACTS*

This curatorial project seeks to explore and set forth some of the ways in which societies, communities, and people have imagined and configured their territories as resistances and responses to a dominant capitalist, neoliberal system.
Territorial Acts acknowledges the historical implications of Ex-Teresa as a space for artistic experimentation, and thus we include the revision of the curatorial project Terreno peligroso / Danger Zone (Los Angeles-Mexico City, 1995), which echoes the investigations considered in this curatorial project.
A series of actions have been commissioned, and these respond critically to territorial fundaments in the current crisis, these works connect their practice with other fields of knowledge and collective acts. Two bridges have been createdto strengthen these relationships: the Conversationals (Conversatorios), which work as spaces of collective inquiry between the public and social actors; and the Workshops (Talleres), which are open spaces for collective action.
Territorial Acts is a proposal to explore the concept of territory and resistances through four nodes of investigation: The idea of territory as Nation-State; Resistance through Memory; Accessible and In-Transit Territories; and Everyday life: Imaginaries, Representations, and Language.
A phenomenon that has been reproduced in Mexico as well as in Latin America and other parts of the world, is the indulgence by which the Neoliberal project has granted the hegemonic State and its alliances with transnational companies, approval to invade and exploit territories by building mines, freeways, and damns without any consideration of the people who inhabit these territories. These excessive uses of power have provoked actions of resistance that try to revert their violent actions. Some of these resistances responded, due to the urgency of the problem, with the same misconception of territory used by the State; others, such as indigenous groups, constantly seek to elaborate a more complex resistance, based on their history, culture, inhabited space and the inclusion of contemporary ideas.
Territorial Acts is an invitation to dialogue and to find—through other views and territories—further possible ways to understand our current situation, while simultaneously suggesting an invitation to make territorial acts.

 

Daniela Lieja Quintanar
*Traducción Selene Preciado
November 18, 2014 Óscar Figueroa: BAVIC https://abstractioninaction.com/happenings/oscar-figueroa-bavic/

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Artists: Diana Barquero, Javier Calvo, Carlos Fernández, Oscar Figueroa, Priscila González, Edgar León, Guillermo Araujo, Rodrigo Dada, Natalia Domínguez, Mauricio Esquivel, Jaime Izaguirre, Javier Ramírez -Nadie-, Andrea Aragón, Hellen Áscoli e Inés Verdugo, Andrés Asturias & Marlov Barrios, Benvenuto Chavajay, Andrea Mármol, Jaime Permuth, César Chinchilla, Luis Landa & Legan Rooster, Jorge Oquelí, Ariel Sosa, Alejandra Vaquero & Yapci Ramos, Sandra Herrera Dean, Fredman Barahona, Alejandro de la Guerra, Milena García, Maruca Gómez, Claudia Gordillo, Raúl Quintanilla, Darién Montañez, Pilar Moreno, Ismael Ortiz, Ela Spalding, Sofia Verzbolovskis, Eugenio Ampudia, Daniel G. Andújar, María Cañas, Colectivo PSJM, Jordi Colomer, Marta de Gonzalo, Chus García-Fraile, Jorge García, Nuria Güell, Mateo Maté, Plubio Pérez, Avelino Sala, and Pelayo Varela.

Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American Isthmus (BAVIC)
July 31 – August 24, 2014
Zona 4
Guatemala City, Guatemala

The ninth edition of the Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American Isthmus (BAVIC, in its Spanish acronym) will be held in the area known as 4 Grados Norte, located in Guatemala City’s Zone 4. The event’s exhibitions will be presented in a pedestrian circuit with 8 fixed sites, and will open on Wednesday, July 30.

The cycle of forms titled Meeting Points will take place on Thursday, July 31 through Saturday, August 2. The exhibition will remain open to the public through Sunday, August 24.

BAVIC began in 1998. The first edition was held at the national theater, in Guatemala. Today, BAVIC is a platform where participating artists have found a space for their expression in contemporary art languages: installations, video, video installations, photography, art actions, public-space interventions, among others. Six proposals from each country participate, and each one of the organizing institutions designates its own mode of selection.

For its ninth edition, the Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American Isthmus will implement the incorporation of a guest country, and Spain was selected for the occasion. The Spanish delegation includes the show Hic et Nunc. Sobre Paradojas Democráticas, curated by Imma Prieto, featuring thirteen of Spain’s most notable contemporary artists.

August 26, 2014 Óscar Figueroa: A Chronicle of Interventions https://abstractioninaction.com/happenings/oscar-figueroa-chronicle-interventions/

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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)

May 3, 2014 Abstraction in Action: ARCOmadrid 2014 https://abstractioninaction.com/happenings/abstraction-action-arcomadrid-2014/

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ARCOmadrid 2014
19–23 February 2014
Halls 7 & 9, Feria de Madrid
Booth 7H02
Madrid, Spain

Abstraction in Action presents its online platform at an institutional booth during the fair, allowing visitors to interact with the database while gaining a deeper understanding of the project and the artists involved. The website will launch a new “Projects” section during the fair, featuring exhibitions, site-specific installations, and events that AIA has produced. Along with that, AIA features new artists:

Leyla Cárdenas (Colombia, 1975), John Mario Ortiz (Colombia, 1973), G. T. Pellizzi (Mexico, 1978), Rosario López Parra (Colombia, 1970), Macaparana (Brazil, 1952), Fidel Sclavo (Uruguay, 1960), KIRIN (Argentina, 1953), Bernardo Corces (Argentina, 1988), Eduardo Santiere (Argentina, 1962), Georgina Santos (Mexico, 1988), Santiago Reyes Villaveces (Colombia, 1986), Rodrigo Sassi (Brazil, 1981), Nicolás Lamas (Peru, 1980), Nicolás Consuegra (Colombia, 1976), María Ezcurra (Argentina, 1973), Jorge Pedro Núñez (Venezuela, 1976), Jaime Ruiz Otis (RUIZCYCLE) (Mexico, 1976), Gabriel Acevedo Velarde (Peru, 1976), Edwin Monsalve (Colombia, 1984), Chiara Banfi (Brazil, 1979), Barbarita Cardozo (Colombia, 1975), Ana Belén Cantoni (Peru, 1983), Óscar Figueroa (Costa Rica, 1986), and Silvana Lacarra (Argentina, 1962)

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February 25, 2014 Óscar Figueroa https://abstractioninaction.com/artists/oscar-figueroa/
Translated from Spanish

A constant in my work is the restlessness and questioning of the social constructs of identity; whether territorial, individual, or artistic. Within that framework, I try to interpret what aspects are traditional constructions and which ones are new forms of economic and cultural “colonization” in the context of “globalization,” which helps define the contemporary situation but that hides the huge inequalities of a world that, to paraphrase George Orwell, is much more global to some than others. Both (or more) fields coexist, are combined and overlapped without really defining the clarity of one possible answer. It is in this boundary where my motivations come to the surface.

 

Una constante en mi trabajo es la inquietud y el cuestionamiento por las construcciones sociales de identidad, ya sean territoriales, individuales o artísticas; dentro de este marco, tratar de descifrar qué aspectos son construcciones tradicionales y cuales son nuevas formas de “colonización”, tanto económica como cultural, en el entorno de la “globalización”, que sirve para caracterizar la situación contemporánea, pero que esconde las enormes desigualdades de un mundo que, parafraseando a George Orwell, es mucho más global para unos que para otros. Ambos ámbitos (o más) conviven, se mezclan y se contraponen sin realmente definir la claridad de una posible respuesta; y es en este linde donde se ponen a flote mis motivaciones.

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February 19, 2014