Interrogating Systems

April 25 – June 22, 2008

Curator: Cecilia Fajardo-Hill 

The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation presents Interrogating Systems, its 2008 Grants and Commissions Programs exhibition. For the first time CIFO presents works by the award recipients of both programs in one single exhibition, which represents a unique opportunity for a dynamic dialogue between artists of different generations, in one single platform.

As with all of CIFO’s Grants and Commissions Program exhibitions, the artists chosen do not respond to a curatorial structure, but to a complex and long process of selection involving curators, artists and art professionals. The title of the show, Interrogating Systems, alludes, nevertheless, to a common practice of questioning, enquiry and transgression present in all the artists participating in this exhibition.   

The diverse and complex themes in the exhibition are explored with experimental and exciting forms of drawing, installation, painting and video.  The two mid-career Commissions Program artists Pablo Cardoso and Federico Herrero present large scale painting installations. Cardoso, from a dialogical interplay between photography and painting, proposes a representation of reality (landscape) which is contradictorily less fictional when reinterpreted by the subjectivity of the painting. Herrero proposes to expand painting to a more open structure by contemplating a dialectical exchange between the spheres of high art painting and the use of painting as it is found in urban developments.

The form of a subtle and complex contextual mapping and social critique is discernible in the case of Johanna Calle and her unconventional drawings of the asymmetrical and resourceful constructions of informal poor neighborhoods in Bogota; in Jonathan Harker’s video of construction workers in luxury high rise buildings being built in Panama City; in Mateo Lopez’s exploration through drawing and video of a journey without movement as a metaphor for the derelict Colombian railroad; in Daniel Medina’s transmutation of the Guaire River in Caracas as testimony of impermanence and destruction; in Moris’ installation stemming from his complex personal experience in C.P. (Ciudad Perdida) in Mexico City; in Amilcar Packer’s video-performance of himself being tossed around in the interior of a truck which dialogues about power structures; and finally in Luis Romero’s re-elaboration of the map of the world through the names of buildings found in Caracas.

On a separate line of work, Alejandro Almanza Pereda proposes to challenge common sense with his experiments of objects under water; Francisco Valdes’ videos break away from any conception of homogeneity and stability by incorporating factors of difference amongst themselves and by carefully avoiding any meaningful narrative. Finally Ícaro Zorbar works from a poetic perspective, exploring human interaction and feelings by creating a complex and subtle interaction between music and the precariousness and fragility of low technology.

Cecilia Fajardo-Hill

Chief Curator, CIFO

Interrogating Systems, 2008 Grants and Commissions Program, exhibition view. Pablo Cardoso, Nowhere, 2008.

Photo: Oriol Tarridas

Interrogating Systems, 2008 Grants and Commissions Program, exhibition view: Federico Herrero, Found Paintings, 2008.

Photo: Oriol Tarridas

Interrogating Systems, 2008 Grants and Commissions Program, exhibition view.

Left to right: Mateo López, Federico Herrero, Pablo Cardoso.

Photo: Oriol Tarridas

Interrogating Systems, 2008 Grants and Commissions Program, exhibition view.

Pablo Cardoso, , Nowhere, 2008; Mateo López, Viaje sin movimiento, 2008

Photo: Oriol Tarridas