EXPOSIÇÕES INDIVIDUAIS / SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Transcription

1 DARIO ESCOBAR

2 EXPOSIÇÕES INDIVIDUAIS / SOLO EXHIBITIONS

3 Composições, 2016 vista da exposição [exhibition view] Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brasil Edouard Fraipont

4 Composições, 2016 vista da exposição [exhibition view] Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brasil Edouard Fraipont

5 Composições, 2016 vista da exposição [exhibition view] Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brasil Edouard Fraipont

6 Composições, 2016 vista da exposição [exhibition view] Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brasil Edouard Fraipont

7 EXPOSIÇÕES COLETIVAS / GROUP EXHIBITIONS

8 Beleza?, 2015 vista da exposição [exhibition view] Centro Cultural Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil [São Paulo, Brazil] Patrick Hamilton

9 Beleza?, 2015 vista da exposição [exhibition view] Centro Cultural Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil [São Paulo, Brazil] Patrick Hamilton

10 Beleza?, 2015 vista da exposição [exhibition view] Centro Cultural Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil [São Paulo, Brazil] Patrick Hamilton

11 Fútbol: the beautiful game, 2014 vista da exposição [exhibition view] Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, USA Studio Darío Escobar

12 Anverso & reverso XIV, 2013 latex, couro, nylon e aço [latex, leather, nylon and steel] Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, USA Studio Darío Escobar

13 La experiencia del objeto, 2012 vista da exposição [exhibition view] Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santiago de Chile (MAC), Santiago de Chile, Chile Jorge Brantmayer

14 Esculturas Transparentes (Transparent Sculptures), 2012 madeira, plástico, borracha e aço [wood, plastic, rubber and steel] dimensões variáveis [variable dimensions] Jorge Brantmayer

15 Poetics of the Handmade, 2007 vista da exposição [exhibition view] The Museum Of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, USA Brian Forrest

16 TRABALHOS / WORKS

17 Dario Escobar White and black compositions no. 01, 2016 engine oil on paper edition: unique 52,5 x 188 x 4,2 cm

18 Dario Escobar White and black compositions no. 02, 2016 engine oil on paper edition: unique 52,5 x 188 x 4,2 cm

19 Dario Escobar White and black compositions no. 03, 2016 engine oil on paper edition: unique 52,5 x 188 x 4,2 cm

20 Dario Escobar White and black compositions no. 04, 2016 engine oil on paper edition: unique 52,5 x 188 x 4,2 cm Dario Escobar White and black compositions no. 05, 2016 engine oil on paper edition: unique 52,5 x 188 x 4,2 cm Dario Escobar White and black compositions no. 06, 2016 engine oil on paper edition: unique 52,5 x 188 x 4,2 cm

21 Composition No. 78, 2016 óleo de motor sobre papel [motor oil on paper] 143 x 39 cm Gustavo Sapón Composition No. 90, 2016 óleo de motor sobre papel [motor oil on paper] 80 x 70,5 cm Gustavo Sapón Composition No. 91, 2016 óleo de motor sobre papel [motor oil on paper] 112 x 70,5 cm Gustavo Sapón

22 Composition No. 92, 2016 óleo de motor sobre papel [motor oil on paper] 80 x 75,2 cm Gustavo Sapón Composition No. 93, 2016 óleo de motor sobre papel [motor oil on paper] 71 x 70,8 cm Gustavo Sapón

23 Composition No. 94, 2016 óleo de motor sobre papel [motor oil on paper] 80,5 x 71 cm Gustavo Sapón Composition No. 95, 2016 óleo de motor sobre papel [motor oil on paper] 80,5 x 71 cm Gustavo Sapón

24 Equilibrio No. 4, 2016 aço e vidro [steel and glass] 14 x 300 x 300 cm Edouard Fraipont

25 Obverse & Reverse XXVII, 2016 latex, couro, corda, nylon e aço [latex, leather, string, nylon and steel] 170 x 320 x 290 cm Edouard Fraipont

26 Geometric Construction No. 7, 2015 madeira, pigmentos e metal [wood, pigments and metal] 178 x 312 x 121 cm Edouard Fraipont

27 Modular Construction No. 6, 2015 madeira, pigmentos e metal [wood, pigments and metal] 100x 162 x 9 cm Gustavo Sapón

28 Modular Construction No. 7, 2015 madeira, pigmentos e metal [wood, pigments and metal] 100x 162 x 9 cm Gustavo Sapón

29 Grid No. 6, 2015 madeira e metal [wood and metal 163,5 x 147 x 10 cm Gustavo Sapón

30 Still Life No. 4, 2014 madeira, formica e borracha [wood, formica and rubber] 38,1 x 127 x 37,9 cm Gustavo Sapón

31 Still Life No. 6, 2014 madeira, formica e borracha [wood, formica and rubber] 38,1 x 127 x 38,1 cm Gustavo Sapón

32 Still Life No. 10, 2014 madeira, formica e borracha [wood, formica and rubber] 38,1 x 127 x 38,1 cm Gustavo Sapón

33 Composition No. 17, 2012 óleo de motor sobre papel [motor oil on paper] 32,5 x 275 cm

34 Juego a 13 manos, 2012 madeira e metal [wood and metal 240 x 200 x 160 cm

35 Bicho raro, 2011 uretano e aço [urethane ans steel] 24 x 35 x 19 cm

36 Círculo sobre círculo, 2011 ferro galvanizado e plástico [galvanized iron and plastic] 100 x 650 cm de largura máxima [maximum width]

37 Obverse & reverse IX, 2010 latéx, couro, corda e aço [latex, leather, string and steel] dimensões variáveis [variable measures]

38 Silent Drawning No. 16, 2010 papel (livros e páginas) [paper (book and pages)] 120 x 80 cm cada Silent Drawning No. 17, 2010 papel (livros e páginas) [paper (book and pages)] 120 x 80 cm cada Silent Drawning No. 21, 2010 papel (livros e páginas) [paper (book and pages)] 120 x 80 cm cada

39 Turbulence III, pintura sobre poliuretano e madeira [wood and polyurethane paint] 80 x 220 x 7 cm

40 Quetzalcopati, 2004 borracha vulcanizada e aço [vulcanized rubber and steel] 500 x 700 x 250 cm

41 DARIO ESCOBAR NASCEU EM [BORN IN] GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA, 1971 VIVE E TRABALHA EM [LIVES AND WORKS IN] GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA, EXPOSIÇÕES INDIVIDUAIS [SOLO EXHIBITIONS] 2016 Composições, Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brasil 2015 En otro orden, Galeria the 9.99, Guatemala City, Guatemala 2014 Unions & Intersections, Nils Stærk Gallery, Kopenhaguen, Denmark Broken circle, CAFAM Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA 2013 Pintura abstracta No. 7, González & González, Santiago de Chile, Chile Untitled, Kamel Mennour Galerie, Paris, France Dario Escobar/ Blacksmith Paintings, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, USA Dario Escobar/ Línea & Espacio, ArteCentro, Guatemala City, Guatemala 2012 Dario Escobar/ La experiencia del objeto, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santiago [MAC], Santiago de Chile, Chile Dario Escobar: Singular Plural, (SCAD) Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia / (SCAD) Atlanta Gallery 1600, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Dario Escobar - Trabajos Recientes, Baró Galeria, São Paulo/SP, Brazil 2011 Dario Escobar/ Revisión, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno Carlos Mérida, Guatemala City, Guatemala 2010 Side and Back, Kamel Mennour Galerie, Paris, France Anverso y Reverso, González y González, Santiago de Chile, Chile 2008 Playoffs, Josee Bienvenu Gallery, New York, USA 2007 La Línea Interrumpida, Centro Cultural Metropolitano [CCM], Guatemala City, Guatemala. Dario Escobar/Project room, Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, USA 2006 Objetos en Transito, Sala Gasco, Santiago de Chile, Chile 2005 Serpentario, Centro Cultural de España en Guatemala [CCEG], Guatemala City, Guatemala Out!, Galería Jacobo Karpio, Miami, Florida, USA 2003 Espacios provisionales, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo [MADC], San José, Costa Rica Visual Entertainments, Museo de Arte Moderno de Mérida, Merida, Mexico 2001 Dario Escobar - Trabajo reciente, Galería Jocobo Karpio, San José, Costa Rica 2000 Dario Escobar: Selección, II National Biennial of Lima, Lima, Peru EXPOSIÇÕES COLETIVAS [GROUP EXHIBITIONS] ª Bienal do Mercosul - Mensagens de Uma Nova América, curadoria de [curated by] Gaudêncio Fidelis, Márcio Tavares, Ana Zavadil, Fernando Davis, Raphael Fonseca, Ramón Castillo Inostroza e [and] Cristián G. Gallegos, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil TRIO Bienal - Tridimensional Bienal do Rio - Quem disse que amanhã não existe?, Módulo Reverberações, curadoria de [curated by] Marcus de Lontra Costa, Instituto Europeo de Design, Rio de Janeiro/RJ, Brazil Daros Latinamerica Collection, curadoria de [curated by] Katrin Steffen e [and] Rodrigo Alonso, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires, Argentina 5 - RPM (Revoluciones por minuto), The 9.99 gallery, Guatemala City, Guatemala Beleza?, Centro Cultural São Paulo, São Paulo/SP, Brazil 2014 Largo x Ancho x Alto, The 9.99 gallery, Guatemala City, Guatemala El día que nos hicimos contemporáneos, Museo de arte y diseño [MADC], San José, Costa Rica

42 Gold, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, Florida, USA Fútbol: the beautiful game, Los Angeles County Museum of Art [LACMA], Los Angeles, California, USA Deslize, Museu de Arte do Rio [MAR], Rio de Janeiro/RJ, Brazil 2013 Confusion in the vault, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico Inaugural Exhibition, The Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, Ohio, USA California-Pacific Triennial, (Orange County Museum of Art [OCMA], Newport Beach, California, USA; Coastline [CCC], Community College Art Gallery, Newport Beach, California, USA y... entonces?, The 9.99 gallery, Guatemala City, Guatemala The Collaborative: Question in the line, Museum of Latin American Art [MOLAA], Long Beach, California, USA 2012 Futbol. Arte y pasión, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey [MARCO], Monterrey, Mexico The Island/ A game of life, Gallery One, Manarat al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi Play with me, Museum of Latin American Art [MOLAA], Long Beach, California, USA 2011 Now, Colección Jumex, Instituto Cultural Cabañas, Guadalajara, Mexico Video otra vez, Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Ceará [MAC/CE], Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil Proyecto ideal, Centro Cultural de Sao Paulo, São Paulo/SP, Brazil From the Recent Past: New Acquisitions, The Museum of Contemporary Art [MOCA], Los Angeles, California, USA 2010 Chapter II: Ruido, The 9.99 gallery/proyecto, Guatemala City, Guatemala Proyecto Ideal, Museo de arte Contemporáneo de Santiago [MAC], Santiago de Chile, Chile Optimismo Radical, Josee Bienvenu Gallery, New York, USA XVII Bienal de Guatemala, Centro Cultural Metropolitano [CCM], Guatemala City, Guatemala Efecto Drácula, Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, Mexico Social Affects: A selection from the permanent Collection of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin America Studies/ Hardvard University, Boston Center for the arts/mills Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Four Views from the Permanent Collection exhibition, Museum of Latin American Art [MOLAA], Long Beach, California, USA 2009 Los impoliticos, Palazzo delle Arti Napoli [PAN], Naples, Italy 10 Springs in the fall, Kamel Mennour Gallery, Paris, France Périfériks, Centre d art Neuchâtel [CAN], Nuchâtel, Switzerland Mundus Novus: 53 Bienal Internacional de Venecia, Artiglerie dell Arsenale, Veneci, Italy , 9.99/proyecto, Guatemala City, Guatemala La nada y el ser, Colección Jumex, Ecatepec, Mexico City, Mexico Video otra vez, Metales Pesados, Santiago de Chile, Chile Performing Localities, Institute of International Visual Arts [INIVA], London, UK Décima Bienal de La Habana, Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña, Havana, Cuba 2008 La invención de lo cotidiano, Museo Nacional de Arte [MUNAL], Mexico City, Mexico Object of Value, Miami Art Central [MAC/MAM], Miami, Florida, USA Playtime, Bétonsalon/ Centre d art et de recherche, Paris, France World Histories, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, USA Visions From Abroad, Flushing Town Hall, New York, USA Elefante negro, Museo Diego Rivera, México City, Mexico 2007 Fortunate Object, Cisneros Fontanalls Art Foundations [CIFO], Miami, Florida, USA Silence & Echo, Arena 1, Santa Monica, California, USA The Hours: Visual Arts of Contemporary Latin America, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia Poetics of the Handmade, The Museum of Contemporary Art [MOCA], Los Angeles, California, USA 2006 El esquiador en el fondo del pozo, Colección Jumex, Ecatepec, Mexico City, Mexico Stil Biuti, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw, Poland The Beautiful Game: Contemporary Art and Fútbol, Brooklyn Academy of Music [BAM], Brooklyn, New York, USA Constant Disturbance, The Spanish Cultural Center, Miami, Florida, USA 2005 The Hours. Visual Arts of Contemporary Latin America, Dublin Museum, Dublin, Ireland Living for the city, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; Centre International d Expositions de Larouche [CIEL], Toronto, Canada 2004 Newpapers, Josee Bienvenu Gallery, New York, USA 2003 Intangible, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo [MADC], San José, Costa Rica LA Freeways: Latin America, The Museum of Contemporary Art [MOCA], Los Angeles, California; America s Society, New York, USA RAIN Project, Pabellón Cuba, Havana, Cuba Stretch, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada TransEAT, Food Culture Museum, Miami, Florida, USA VIII Bienal de la Habana, Centro Wifredo Lam, Havana, Cuba 2002 ARTitsmo, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo [MADC], San José, Costa Rica Contaminados, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo [MADC], San José, Costa Rica Del centro a la isla, Casa de las Américas, Havana, Cuba Intimate/Universal, Ateneo de Caracas, Caracas, Venezuela Mesoamérica: Oscilaciones y Artificios, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno [CAAM], Canary Islands, Spain Zones in Tension, de GANG Gallery, Haarlem, North Holland

43 2001 Continuous Connection, Felissimo Project, New York, USA Short Stories, La Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan, Italy Spaces/Bodies/Identities, Centro Cultural de España, San José, Costa Rica 13 Hours, Sala Mendoza, Caracas, Venezuela I Tirana Biennial, National Gallery & Chinese Pavilion, Tirana, Albania IV Caribbean Biennial, Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Barro de América, IV Biennial, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofía Imber, Caracas, Venezuela eme, Biennale du Design 2000, Ecole des Beaux Arts de Saint-Etienne, Saint-Étienne, France L art dans le monde, Pont Alexandre III, Paris, France 1999 Guatemalan Art, Sala Oficial Juan Ismael del Cabildo de Fuerteventura, Canary Island, Spain II Iberoamerican Biennial of Lima, Lima, Peru 1998 Fotojornada 98, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno Carlos Mérida, Guatemala City, Guatemala Without Title, Plaza G&T; Guatemala City, Guatemala I Central American Biennale, Centro Cultural Miguel Angel Asturias, Guatemala City, Guatemala; Duke University Museum of Art [DUMA], North Carolina, USA VI International Art Biennale of Cuenca, Cuenca, Equator 1997 La Joven Estampa, Casa de las Américas, Havana, Cuba COLEÇÕES PÚBLICAS [PUBLIC COLLECTIONS] Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida, USA Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, USA Centre Pompidou, Paris, France Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation [CIFO], Miami, USA Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zurich, Switzerland Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, UK La Fundación / Colección Jumex, Ecatepec, Mexico Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santiago do Chile [MAC], Santiago de Chile, Chile Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo [MADC], San José, Costa Rica Museo del Barrio, New York, USA Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno Carlos, Merida, Guatemala The Museum of Contemporary Art [MoCA], Los Angeles, USA Museum of Fine Arts [MFA], Boston, USA Museum of Latin American Art [MoLAA], Long Beach, California, USA The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, USA The Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, Ohio, USA Sayago & Pardon, Inc., Tustin, California, USA Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria LIVROS [PUBLICATIONS] Astiasarán, Clara Elena Concepción. Darío Escobar, ArtNexus, No. 43, (January-March 2002): pp Auerbach, Ruth. ARCOnoticias, No. 24, (Madrid 2002). Bondone, Tomás. Problematic and feverish. ARCOnoticias, No. 23, (Spring 2002). Brielmaier, Isolde. Double Take: The art of Dario Escobar and Patrick Hamilton, Exh. Cat. Objetos en Transito, Sala Gasco, Santiago de Chile, (2006): pp Buckley, Annie. Full Metal Skatebord, Craft: No. 6, (2008) p. 17. Burkhalter, Laura. Turangawaewae, Exh. Cat. World Histories pp Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, (2008). Calvo, Enesto. Espacios Provisionales: Sentidos difusos, significaciones equivocas. Exh. Cat. Serpentario Centro Cultural de España en Guatemala, (2005): pp. 20, 26. Cazali, Rosina. Play offs, Arte al Día International, No. 125, (November December 2008): pp Ready Made Ready, Exh. Cat. Serpentario Centro Cultural de España en Guatemala, (2005): pp. 20, 26. Darío Escobar: Fin amors for Objects, ArtNexus, No. 38, (November 2000-January 2001): pp Le Guatemala: En route. In L art Dans le Monde. Exh. Cat. Paris, France: Beaux Arts, (2000). 2nd Ibero-American Biennial of Lima, ArtNexus, No. 35, (February-April 2000): pp Contemporary Art in Guatemala, ArtNexus, No. 32, (May-July 1999): pp First Art Biennale of the Central American Isthmus, ArtNexus, No. 31, (January-March 1999) p. 76. Darío Escobar, El becerro de oro, Colloquia: Proyecto para el arte contemporáneo, n.d. Cisneros, Dayamick. Dessicated and Reconstituted, Arteamérica, (January 2004). Cummins, Thomas B.F. At Play in the Arts of the Lord: The Early Work of Dario Escobar, Book. A singular plurality: the works of Dario Escobar. Ed. Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts,(2012). Damian, Carol. Art Miami 2001, ArtNexus, No. 40, (April-June 2001): pp Díaz, Tamara. Art in Central America: The Critical Glance, Atlántica, No. 31, (February 2002): pp de Santa Ana, Mariano. Hybrids on the Side, Lápiz, No. 186, (September-October 2002). Falconi, José Luis. (Editor) A singular plurality: the works of Dario Escobar. Edited by Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts, (2012). Fajardo Hill, Cecilia. Fortunate Objects, Exh. Cat. Cisneros Fontanalls Art Foundation (CIFO)., (2007): pp. 66, 67. Gallego P., Pablo. Dossier presented in Monografías, Galicia School of Architects, vol. 1: pp Gallegos, Carina. Dario Escobar, ArtNexus, No. 55, (January-March, 2005): pp Gomez Eduard M. The Unmistakable Touch of the Hand, Art & Antiques, (October 2007): pp Hip home for art in Mexico City, International Herald Tribune, (April 27, 2005). González, Lorena. The Object s Evil Genious, Arte al Día News, No. 5, (2004): pp Herrera, Adriana. On Out!, Miami Herald, (June 2004). López Anaya, Jorge. La fluida geografía del arte latinoamericano, ARCOnoticias No. 23, (Spring 2002): pp López Ramos, Rafael. Objetos de Valor, ArtNexus, No. 72 (March-May 2009) p Loría, Vivianne. Marginalidad y transculturación en el arte centroamericano, Lápiz, No. 177, vol. 20, (November 2001): pp Mesoamérica: Oscilaciones y Artificios. In Mesoamérica: Oscilaciones y Artificios. Exh. Cat. Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM). Canary Islands, Spain, (2002). Dario Escobar: Emblems of Modern Stubbornness. In Visual Entertainments. Exh. Cat. Museo de Arte Moderno. Mérida, México, (2003).

44 Navarro, Mario. Objetos en suspención, Sol del Río Gallery, Guatemala, Guatemala, (February 2000). Power, Kevin. Dario Escobar: Simulacro local y glocal, Book. A singular plurality: the works of Dario Escobar. Ed. Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts,(2012). Quirós, Luis. En la Era de la Mitotécnia, La Nación, San José, Costa Rica, (March 2000). Ribeaux, Ariel. Darío Escobar: The Seductive Perversity of the Road to El Dorado (Step by Step), Galería Sol del Río, Guatemala, Guatemala. Ruiz, Alma. Interview, Book. A singular plurality: the works of Dario Escobar. Ed. Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts,(2012). Donde la materia se une al mito ArtNexus, No. 80, (March-May 2011): Cover. pp La Linea Interrumpida, ArtMedia, No. 14, (2007): pp Poetics of the Handmade Los Angeles, (2007): pp Sommer, Doris. Choose to lose: Dario Escobar s winning game, Book. A singular plurality: the works of Dario Escobar. Ed. Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts,(2012). Spinger, José Manuel, Dario Escobar, KBK Arte Contempoáneo, ArtNexus, No. 61, (2006): pp Valdés, Emiliano. Striking objects, Contemporary, No. 66, (October 2004): p. 45. In the Labyrith of Consumptions and Creation, Artes en Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, (November 2004). Valdés, Eugenio. Stories of Alienatives (any similarities to real facts or persons are not purely coincidental). In Short Stories: New Narrative Forms in Contemporary Art, Exh. Cat. La Fabbrica del Vapore. Milan, Italy: lalitotipo, (March 2001): pp Valdés Eugenio and Keith Wallace. Introduction, In Stretch. Exh Cat. The Power Plant. Toronto, Canadá: press, (2003). Viveros-Fauné, Christian. The Sculpture of Everyday Life: Dario Escobar s Readymade Sculptures, Book. A singular plurality: the works of Dario Escobar. Ed. Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts,(2012). Zamudio-Taylor, Víctor. La forma como estrategia, Perspectivas de arquitectura y diseño, No. 3, (March-June 2008): pp Objetos Relacionales: Darío Escobar & Patrick Hamilton, Revista 180, No. 18, (December 2006): pp Objetos Relacionales: Darío Escobar & Patrick Hamilton. Exh. Cat. Sala Gasco, (2006): pp Santiago de Chile, Chile. Zaya, Antonio. Dario Escobar, Atlántica, No. 31, (Winter 2002): pp

45 DARÍO ESCOBAR INTERVIEW Darío Escobar s desire to bring together Guatemala s past and present first came to the fore in the early 2000s in a series of works exploring the country s Baroque past and the enthusiasm for sports that predominates among its population today; these well-known pieces include skateboards and other sports equipment covered in silver and painstakingly imprinted with religious symbols in the seventeenth-century Baroque style. Examples of such handicraft are still found in Guatemalan churches in altarpieces and a multitude of objects used in Catholic rituals. With his 2009 Kukulkán and the works that precede it, which carry titles such as Serpiente No. 1, Kukulkán, Quetzalcóatl, Quetzalcóatl II, Quetzalcóatl III, Serpiente, Serpentario, etc., Escobar continues his conversation with the region s history. He returns to Guatemala s past this time focusing on the country s indigenous (and specifically, Mayan) roots and integrates it into objects such as bicycle tires and balls used in a variety of sports. Escobar s interest in line as reflected in his variations of the feathered serpent form is combined with his exploration of the tridimensionality of objects. All of these works can be defined as drawing-sculptures: they are neither one nor the other, but an amalgam of both. This way of working, fairly common in the field of contemporary art, has always been the process best suited for the expression of Escobar s ideas. The combination in his projects of several media such as painting and sculpture or drawing and sculpture gives Escobar the necessary freedom to create works that are not subject to the limitations of any single genre. In some cases, the process also means that he does not have to manufacture pieces himself. Like many artists working today, Escobar organizes the production of one work (or several) by selecting the scale, color, and materials and then leaves the execution of the piece to a number of assistants. Here the artist acts as a project coordinator guiding a team of workers who faithfully execute his instructions; the purpose is not to hide the artist s hand but rather to use any available means to make his thoughts concrete. In Escobar s sculptures, color is usually provided by the materials: the metallic silver of supermarket carts, the black hue of rubber combined with yellow in bicycle tires, and the white and green of soccer balls. While the artist adds nothing, he does select his materials carefully, realizing that these found objects will undergo a metamorphosis in their form and meaning as they become works of art. The recontextualization of the object is an inherent part of Escobar s work. A more recent example of this process can be seen in the series Crash (2009), which debuted with three works (I, IV, and V) at Galerie Kamel Mennour in Paris in early The twelve remaining works were included in the Bienal de Arte Paiz in Guatemala City in April of the same year. 1 All fifteen works in the series are made of chromed iron and steel; there are small variations in size, but they all measure approximately 39.3 by 27.6 by 25.5 inches, and as is usual with Escobar s work, some are placed on the wall and some on the floor. Although they are perhaps less spectacular than Escobar s roomsized installations, their twisting, anatomical shapes are immediately impressive. Reminiscent of the orthopedic corsets worn by Frida Kahlo as a result of her injuries in a traffic accident, their relationship to suffering and death is expressed not only through their contorted shapes the concrete result of an accident, perhaps but also in their titles. Suffering and death, so present in pre-hispanic cultures, are also an important part of Guatemala s Catholic colonial past. 1 Info on Fundación Paiz, Bienal I first met Darío Escobar during a trip to Guatemala in early 2001 when invited to lecture at Proyecto Colloquia; I was conducting one-on-one meetings with local artists. 2 Impressed by Escobar s artistic output, I kept in touch with him. I have followed his career through frequent exchanges, sporadic encounters at art fairs and biennials, and visits to his exhibitions both in Guatemala and New York. In 2006 I invited him to participate in the exhibition Poetics of the Handmade, which took place a year later at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. 3 One of eight Latin American artists whose work was included in the exhibition, Escobar s presentation consisted of six works: a basketball hoop, a surfboard, a ping-pong paddle, two skateboards all sheathed in ornate silver and a landscape made of baseball bats. This interview is one of the many ways in which, as a curator, I continue to explore the different facets and meanings that frame Escobar s work. Alma Ruiz: Your professional training is in architecture, not art. Tell me, how did you decide that a career in art was a better fit for you than being an architect? Darío Escobar: I don t think I ever actually made a decision. I think everything was falling into place, and for some reason I started to feel more comfortable doing art projects. In fact, the change was hardly noticeable to me because I think that the way both disciplines operate involves very similar conceptual structures and formal operations I didn t abruptly go from black to white. AR: What do you think an environment such as that in Guatemala, which has no infrastructure, has contributed to your formation as an artist? DE: Learning to solve everything by myself: this is what I ve gained from living in an environment where the infrastructure (in terms of visual arts) is practically nonexistent, There aren t any specialized museums or galleries with serious programs, plus the critical apparatus is very weak and poorly informed. AR: What does it mean to develop as an artist in a country like Guatemala? DE: Well, the Guatemalan visual arts scene is, as I said, practically nonexistent except for a very small group that shares this particular interest. Being from Guatemala and developing an international career in the visual arts is a very complicated matter. On the other hand, Guatemala is a country where literature is really well supported it enjoys, to some extent, certain advantages. For example, there are national awards, special publications, and publishing houses that publish young writers; there is more engineering, so to speak. On the other hand, there is also a small readership, but this hasn t stopped a solid and internationally recognized literary tradition from developing. AR: Why haven t the visual arts had the same luck? Guatemala has a great artistic tradition, above 2 Info on Proyecto Colloquia 3 Info on Poetics of Handmade at LA MoCA

46 all in the Mayan and Colonial periods. DE: That s an excellent question. But let s start by recognizing that the universities in Guatemala don t offer higher education in the visual arts. This implies that these institutions of higher learning do not recognize that the visual arts are important for a country like ours. If this is what educational institutions think of the visual arts, what can we imagine other sectors that make up Guatemalan society must think? In general, if someone needs more complete and professional training, he or she should leave Guatemala to get it. AR: This was the case for architects Roberto Aycinena, Carlos Haeussler, Pelayo Llarena, Raúl Minondo, and Jorge Montes, who built International Style buildings in the city s Civic Center: City Hall and the Guatemalan Social Security Institute in the fifties, the Bank of Guatemala and the National Mortgage Bank in the following decade. 4 They were educated in Mexico and the United States. All of these buildings have interior murals and exterior mural-reliefs by the great masters Roberto González Goyri, Guillermo Grajeda Mena, Carlos Mérida, Efraín Recinos, and Dagoberto Vásquez. 5 The integration of art-architecture-city planning was an essential reference point for the generation that was trained at that time. Are these artists and architects and their work still important reference points for contemporary artists? DE: The 1950s were really an exceptional time in the history of art and architecture in Guatemala because there was a lot of interest on behalf of certain groups in starting to design a modern country. This interest was very prevalent in several Latin American countries after the ideas of Oscar Niemeyer and others began to circulate in the universities, and Guatemala was no exception. 6 The outcome, the Civic Center of Guatemala City, was an interesting convergence of the modern thinking about national progress through architecture and the indigenista aesthetics present in the art that were circulating at the time. This great promise of modernity unfortunately fell apart after the armed conflict started in the late sixties and early seventies. However, in the late nineties a new generation of artists and audiences started to establish closer ties to what was happening outside of the country, and independent projects began to emerge as information circulated. One example was Proyecto Colloquia ( ), which organized very simple exhibitions and workshops with international experts and sought to strengthen conversation about and analysis of the situation of art in Guatemala. Unfortunately, most of these initiatives lacked continuity, including Colloquia, perhaps because for many of them their funding came from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). NGOs provide this funding to cultural projects that strictly comply with issues in which they are specifically interested such as armed conflict, historical memory, gender issues, domestic violence, and violence against women and not necessarily the visual arts themselves. So there isn t much room for aesthetic and theoretical research on art, unless it is approached from these axes. Going back to the Civic Center, I don t think the synergy that occurred in the fifties and sixties exists today. There is still a need to generate architectural infrastructure, but the current priorities involve simply building the project itself, getting the money to make it happen creating four walls, a floor, and a roof and not formulating a more responsible intellectual discourse. AR: What are the top names influencing young Guatemalan artists these days? DE: There are no national reference points for young Guatemalan artists because most of them get information through the Internet, special interest magazines, etc. The lack of serious galleries 4 Info on Architects and on the buildings they established 5 Info on artists (when refering to Merida refer info on Note on Merida) 6 Info on Niemayer and his influence and the lack of a solid and professional critical apparatus causes artists to find themselves a bit adrift: They focus on projects of little significance to their intellectual interests, such as participating in small festivals or exhibiting in bars and cafes all of these activities are relevant to a very local circuit. AR: Guatemalan art has not lacked talented artists, but few have excelled internationally. Among the latter is Carlos Mérida ( ), with whom modernity in Guatemalan art began but who, for personal reasons, developed his career in Mexico. 7 There is also Rodolfo Abularach (1933 ), who has been in New York since More recently we can cite Luis González Palma (1957 ), who received a lot of attention in the 1990s; 9 he currently lives in Argentina. Seeing the lack of important artists within the national scene, do you think that for a Guatemalan artist to set himself apart today he or she d still have to consider leaving the country to live abroad? DE: No. What artists really should do is erase the mental boundaries they sometimes unconsciously erect. Today, living in a country like Guatemala can be quite beneficial: even with very few resources, it gives you the opportunity to explore methods that you couldn t investigate from the other side. The poor visibility of Guatemalan artists is not due to their artistic production. In fact, I think Guatemala has a vast tradition of interesting artists. The big problem is that there aren t any art critics who have the ability to put Guatemalan artists in a dialogue with the rest of the world. There is an enormous difference between artistic production and art criticism. To this disparity the first obstacle to Guatemalan art circulating in the largest global venues let us also add the lack of local structure and lack of state interest and private initiatives. AR: Are there art schools in Guatemala? And is that where most Guatemalan artists develop? DE: There are schools of visual arts founded at the beginning of the twentieth century whose academic structures are now outdated. Their programs are quite inadequate to form the artist of today; they actually function more like trade schools. AR: What is the role that the artistic institutions created between 1945 and 1951 by former President Juan José Arévalo who gave the country a constitution that ensured the people the enjoyment of culture have played in the development of the visual arts in Guatemala? I am referring, for example, to the Department of Fine Arts and Cultural Extension, the Department of Aesthetic Education, and the Standing Competition of Sciences, Letters, and Fine Arts that was established to take place annually. 10 DE: I know a little about these institutions policies, but they no longer exist. It s interesting that the Ministry of Culture and Sports was made strictly inoperable from the start, because it doesn t have a budget for anything other than paying its employees. So in terms of contributions by the state, I don t see any opportunities at the moment. AR: In Guatemala there is now a contemporary art movement that emerged with renewed strength more than a decade ago. Has this phenomenon produced new public or private institutions that support the artist and help him or her develop a career by means of exhibitions, scholarships, and other opportunities? 7 Info on Carlos Merida 8 Info on Rodolfo Aburalach 9 Info on Luis Gonzalez Palma 10 Info on the President and the institutions he created

47 DE: No. In recent years projects with a special emphasis on contemporary art have developed sporadically, but these organizations seem to go under quickly due to a lack of funds and little public interest. These projects may leave a certain mark, but they lack continuity, and this creates a very fragmented story of what has happened and is happening now. There have been projects that have lasted longer and generated some hope in the public and amongst local artists, but they have not managed to exceed the interest in artists who grow and thrive at the international level. The only event that has taken place regularly during the last thirty years is the Bienal de Arte Paiz. The Paiz Foundation has worked diligently to bring panels of judges and sizable audiences to this event, 11 but unfortunately this is not enough. You cannot delegate this responsibility to a single event or organization: many more contributors are needed to strengthen the art scene in Guatemala. I have participated in this biennial several times. I think that the event s continuity is very important in a country where much is started and little is finished. Of course, after thirty years of existence it would be interesting to professionalize the event make it more accessible to international audiences and turn it into a space that would enable them to see what is being produced in Guatemala right now. AR: Is there a visual artist in Guatemala who has been important to your artistic development? DE: I ve always been really interested in the work of Luis Diaz (1939 ) and that of Margarita Azurdia ( ) because they cultivated more complex critical possibilities than other artists who only worked figuratively. 12 Really, they were part of a generation that broke out and is even now thirty years later being reviewed (they worked in the sixties and seventies). The most interesting thing about Luis is his attitude towards the art object: he has a way of rethinking structure from a new viewpoint. In terms of Margarita s work, I was interested in the energy and that really close connection she had with Guatemala. She didn t sacrifice universality; her work could speak of Guatemala in international terms. AR: And what about literature? Who are the Guatemalan writers you admire? DE: There has always been a really great energy in Guatemalan literature. Listing names off the top of my head, I m sure that I m leaving out really important writers, but for starters I have always been interested in Enrique Gómez Carrillo s crónicas ( ) and short stories by Rafael Arévalo Martínez. Recently I ve been interested in some of Mario Roberto Morales s ideas (1947 ), well, I can give you many names. 13 In the work of Gómez Carrillo, I like the idea of the first Guatemalan who fell in love with the world and put aside provincial thinking and lived in Paris with all the craziest stories in the world. He taught us that being born in a country as small as this one isn t disadvantageous for entering into dialogue with the world. From Mario I m drawn to his critical idea of the construction of Guatemalan identity. Mario really made us look in the mirror, at ourselves. You can find more recent writers such as Rodrigo Rey Rosa (1958 ) who can speak from slightly more defined spaces within a fresh international narrative. 14 AR: What were the first works you created? DE: More than actual works, I made some pieces on paper that allowed me to establish a relationship with my country in a way that was more substantial and less attached to the local artistic parameters. These pieces especially led to the development of several aspects that allowed me 11 See info on Note 1 12 Info on Luis Diaz and Margarita Alzudia 13 Info on Enrique Gomez Carrillo, Rafael Arévalo Martinez and Mario Gomez Carrillo 14 Info on Rey Rosa to get to know, and of course, recognize myself. AR: Can you give an example? In what year were they made? DE: These works were actually small collages. From them developed shortly thereafter the works that began to circulate outside of Guatemala, such as the McDonald s cup (Untitled, 1998) coated with gold in the style of the nineteenth century. This series of works date from AR: Let s talk about these works and their connection to Guatemalan colonial art. How did you come to think of joining two aspects of Guatemalan life as supposedly disparate as popular culture and Catholic tradition but which are nevertheless closely linked to Guatemalan idiosyncrasy? DE: In fact, these early works emerged as I sought to contrast two periods that are different but also very similar. At that time I had a very close relationship with the country, above all with its past (I went back to study the restoration of movable and immovable property in Spain). I realized that the past and the present were exactly the same even though almost 500 years had gone by, and I was eager to show that through pieces such as the skateboards and baseball bats embossed in silver. I saw that the colonial model was still in force, and that as a nation, although we were within a subordinate cultural tradition, we were apparently very comfortable. These first pieces began with that energy and through that experience. To look at the past is to go back on an already traveled path that does not present any risk or conflict: it is a comfortable position in relation to the experience of art. That is why people continue to loot Catholic churches and steal paintings and sculptures from them. These thefts mean that there is high demand for Colonial art: there is enough of a local market that thieves are willing to take these risks. AR: The works we are talking about were produced early in your career and were an instant success. Why do you think they had such an impact? DE: From the start they were very seductive. I played with this idea of the province, but I wanted to enter a more global dialogue. They were true time bombs: no one could discredit them because they were well made true to the gold and silver techniques of the Colonial era but no one could qualify them because they went against what Guatemalan art implied. They were very critical works, in many respects. AR: What advantages did the international renown that these works gave you bring? DE: It meant that I could leave the architectural firm where I worked and pursue art full-time, and that gave way to my need to grow as an artist. More than visibility, these early works gave me the opportunity to discover a new path, the world of contemporary sculpture. In fact, from that point on, new objects came about that said a lot by themselves, and I slowly began to strip them: starting in 2000 or 2001, I began to remove the gold and silver, and I was left with only their meanings and forms. The body of work I am thinking about now basically started at that point. AR: Have you continued this search for meaning in mass-produced objects? DE: Yes, and in their decline as merchandise. I am very interested in the ideas of Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, which seem to me quite accurate as they relate to contemporary art: the object as a cross between an industrial object and a sculpture within the fine arts tradition Info on Benjamin B.

48 I m very interested in analyzing the relationship between production and consumption, especially in these times in which objects are mass produced, and in their production in factories, individuals alienate themselves from the items: they distance themselves, but they are then reconciled in the exercise of purchase/consumption. However, to incorporate the object into an aesthetic operation, such as art, leads us to a narrower and more revealing space for reflection it does not simply place the object within these mechanical operations of manufacturing and buying. AR: After stripping the works of their connection to the country s Colonial past, you have turned your gaze to an even more distant past the pre-hispanic period with works such as Kukulkán (2005 and 2009) or the series of works that you entitled Quetzalcoatl (II, III, etc.). This past is also very present in everyday life in Guatemala. What was the impetus behind this new reflection? DE: My interest in the pre-hispanic past actually lies in the question of form, and I take this as a pretext to investigate the major issues that informed art in these lands for centuries. When I made these works, I was really excited to discover a sculptural model that would show certain qualities that traditional sculpture doesn t show, and one of these factors was the behavior of the material. I was interested in starting to work with light, with shadows, and with materials that move freely without obeying the forms that I give them as a sculptor. It was a true exercise in freedom. I thought this idea was touched upon in some way in pre-hispanic architecture with the shadows that form on staircases I ve always been particularly interested in archeology as well. AR: What projects are you working on now? DE: I m always investigating objects and always exploring the possibilities of their traces with drawings. Right now I m in a dynamic of constructing sculptures from basic operations such as collecting different objects, cutting and sectioning them. I am interested in working in the most poetic and fragile spaces. AR: Have you ever thought about how your work fits into the history of Guatemalan art? DE: Many times... I think my responsibility ends, for the moment, with the creation of the work. The experts will see how it fits or not. Alma Ruiz April 15, 2011

49 DARÍO ESCOBAR THE SCULPTOR OF EVERYDAY LIFE: DARÍO ESCOBAR S READYMADE SCULPTURES Latin American artists today occupy an increasingly privileged place at the table of global culture. Everywhere you look, the history of modern and contemporary art is in the process of being rewritten. Geometric abstraction, minimalism, postminimalism, conceptualism movements many have previously treated as exclusively North American and European in origin are today recognized to have developed throughout Latin America, often on their own steam and while significantly advancing on their more central counterparts. This process of inclusion is even more dramatic when we consider contemporary art. Certain key Latin American artists have achieved with their current practices what many modernists would have likely given their eyeteeth (if not their entire careers) to achieve namely, acclaim unqualified by a geographical asterisk. The greatest contribution made by these crucial generations of Latin American artists to global contemporary art can be defined in a phrase. What they have wrought, from Gego s chilly geometric abstractions to Kcho s superheated balsero installations, can accurately be pegged as conceptualism with a difference. 1 That difference turns out to be both political and sensuous in orientation, as charted by an artistic tradition teeteringly founded on social and economic instability, a historic paucity of high culture, and, most importantly, a genius for scrappy solutions to the region s ongoing underdevelopment. Starting with Oswald de Andrade s 1928 Manifesto Antropófago which made a virtue of literally cannibalizing invading (read more advanced) cultures to the geographically indiscriminate use artists make of global culture today, visual creators from Latin America have become especially expert at squeezing invention out of necessity. 2 It goes without saying that specific historical contexts account for this characteristic resourcefulness. In the volatile 1960s as the U.S. experienced its most profound economic boom ever and the liberated lifestyle of America s youth clashed with official culture a particularly monkish brand of New York-style conceptualism fiddled with formal reduction and what later came to be enshrined as the dematerialization of the art object. Meanwhile, in Latin America s capitals, mass politics met the age of social protest head on. The ensuing civic instability swung the region s conceptual artists away from the prohibitions of formalist minimalism and toward a passionate embrace of the world. As artist and theorist Luis Caminitzer put it: Latin American conceptualism emerged as an aesthetic more concerned with reality than with abstraction. 3 Born of conflicts more terrible than anything experienced in North America since the Civil War, Latin American artists of the 1960s and beyond developed an aesthetics that brandished politics and social critique as their weapons of choice in at times personally risky, often utopian, manifestly dynamic engagements with society. In contrast to the sort of conscientious objection Sol LeWitt deployed as an argument for political agnosticism in 1968 The artist wonders what he can do when he sees the world in pieces around him, he mused in a seminal interview, only to answer anemically as an artist he can do nothing except be an artist engagé artists (often obliquely engagé, mind you) from Mexico City to Buenos Aires established vigorous practices in response to urgent social issues. Take the Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica. A figure preoccupied, among other things, with the idea of what it means to make art with something other than someone else s objects in mind, he captured the creative anxieties of his generation in an age-defining nutshell: In an underdeveloped country, how does one explain the advent of an avant-garde in such a way as to justify it not in terms of a symptomatic alienation, but as a decisive factor in collective progress? 5 Despite its tortured critical theory syntax and period inflected sociologist s lingo, Oiticica s basic question Can advanced art and economic underdevelopment coexist? turns out to be just as important today as it was fifty years ago. 6 Small countries have big politics, the poet Joseph Brodsky wrote. 7 Guatemala and its shockingly violent, topsy turvy history is a perfect case in point. The second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti, more than half of its population currently lives under the poverty line. A nation with the lowest median age in the Americas a factor that indicates low life expectancy resulting from disease, illiteracy, and lack of social advancement Guatemala also boasts one of the highest murder rates in the world. An average of sixteen people are slain every day on its city streets and country lanes, far more than the three or four killed daily in Iraq. Most of that violence a mocking echo of the brutal civil war the country suffered between 1985 and 1996 is directly tied to drugs and gang activity, with grotesque mutilations and decapitations standing in as signatures for the local gangs or maras. 8 A fragile nation state with colossal problems that would confound its much larger northern neighbors, Guatemala has also produced something else that may be rarer still especially if you factor in the country s clamorous comparative disadvantages. That is, namely, a disproportionate number of sophisticated visual artists to have recently graced the world s top galleries and museums. They are the flowers that bloom from the killing fields. Among these artists, the most notable is a lifelong Guatemala City resident who also happens to be among the world s foremost foragers of readymade objects: the sculptor Darío Escobar. Just as New York minimalism in 1965 was all Soho lofts, square rooftops, and dying blue collar businesses and its West Coast variant tripped out on Venice Beach haze and shiny plastic, Darío Escobar s art has been similarly influenced by a set of memorable cultural references that connote an enduring sense of place. That place is modern day Guatemala: a heartbreakingly poor country whose bedrock of ancient and colonial heritage is sedimented by a long history of corruption and institutionalized violence; that tragic geology having been more recently laminated with a veneer of global corporate and pop culture. A country that is more McOndo to take a cue from Chilean writer Alberto Fuguet s cynical updating of magical realism 9 than the Macondo once