Photography (Photography)

The photographic series Tonatiuh (The Son of the Sun) by Juan Brenner is an in-depth visual study of current Guatemalan society from the perspective of miscegenation and the incalculable consequences of the Spanish conquest. Establishing Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado as a central figure, not only in the conquest of Guatemala, but also in the formation of a complex, segregated society, Brenner proposes a series of images that re-establish the lens through which to consider both a historical and contemporary Guatemala. Tonatiuh is a visual essay on the state of a country on the verge of failure and its incapacity to address its own history and learn from it.

Painting (Painting)

Pavimento exterior Banco Safra (Rooftop Banco Safra)

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Many of Araujo’s works depict reproductions and Libro Ponti II is a recreation of a book on Italian architect Gio Ponti. Ponti designed the Villa Planchart a private, modernist house in Caracas, Venezuela, which at the time it was built in 1956, reflected the emergence of a class increasingly globalized, both culturally and economically. Araujo’s replica of the book thus refers to the role and visibility of Venezuela in circuits of global cultural production.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

They/Them by Juan Obando is a video essay and deepfake that uses Adobe Stock clips, maintaining their branded watermark, but animating the scenes underneath with a narrative of self-critical awareness. It’s a meta-narrative that uses the staged scenarios (as evidence) to talk about the variable politics (and mercenary capitalism) of the stock footage industry and the misinformation dilemma we’re facing with the arrival of AI technology. In a surprising reversal, a deepfake is used to tell the truth.

Photography (Photography)

The Breaks reflects Capistran’s interests in sampling and fusing different cultural, social, and historical sources. Growing up in an African-American community in Los Angeles, Capistran has long been influenced by hip-hop culture. The photographs in this print document him surreptitiously breakdancing on Carl Andre’s iconic lead floor piece after the guards at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art have left the gallery.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

El Salto (The Jump/The Waterfall) by Juan Covelli depicts the Salto de Tequendama, a waterfall located on the outskirts of southwest Bogota. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the waterfall served as a national symbol that captured both the singularity of its geographical reference point, as well as the romantic experience of nature and immensity. The video installation arises from a detailed archive research into historic representations of Colombian landscape and reflection on their role in the present-day imaginary of the country and the wider world.

Photography (Photography)

In Amantes (Lovers) Juan Carlos points his lens at his own environment, his underground (literally) studio in Havana. A beautiful and intimate image of a seedy yet casual scene of two lovers in the background foreshadowed by a beautiful young woman smoking a joint in the foreground, a very powerful and not too subtle political representation of the current realities and truth of youth life in Havana. Juan Carlos Alom is an artist known for his documentary photography of Cuba’s subcultures and underground scenes.

Painting (Painting)

White Minority , is typical of Capistran’s sampling of high art genres and living subcultures in which the artist subsumes an object’s high art pedigree within a vernacular art form. Here, Capistran humorously remixes the form and style of Frank Stella’s Black Paintings with California punk rock band Black Flag’s song title and logo (created by artist Raymond Pettibon). White Minority , then, appropriates, recontextualizes, and riffs on language and visual signs to unmoor notions of identity, power, and revolution.

Residencia Milan 1 is a painting of a house surrounded by lush forest. The image depicted is both photorealistic and creates the illusion of an unfolded piece of paper, with creases and discolorations. In referring to the circulation of images, the painting raises questions of a viewer’s relationship to the image of a beautiful house: as icon, wish, or standard of beauty.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

The 10 $1 bills that make up From a Whisper to a Scream (2012) read like instructions in origami. From left to right, each bill is progressively folded up, step by step, into the shape of a gun. Both a scream and a whisper are capable of conveying the same content, if at drastically different decibels, the artist proposes.

Painting (Painting)

Residencias Louveira III