La Trampa Gallery, Mexico City 2014
Guy Berube presents THE INFIDELS
International Group Exhibit to be held in Mexico City @
La Trampa Gráfica Contemporánea //
Curated by Ernesto Alva, César Catsuu López & Guy Berube
OPENING NIGHT: Saturday February 15, 2014 / 7 -11pm
Exhibit runs from February 15 to March 15, 2014.
In turn, Ottawa will host La Trampa Gallery for a one month exhibit.
– See more at: http://www.guyberube.com/april-2014/
“We are the Infidels.
At once innocent and ruthless, our bodies are beyond faith.
The seduction of chaos and the chaos of seduction,
Render visible the wounds in the flesh”.
– Ryah Stelmanssen, 1862
Statement:
“The Latin word infidelis means “one without faith”. Far from its medieval Christian (and Islamic) origins, the word is reborn here with a new vibrancy to embrace aesthetic practices puncturing the sanctuary of the body.
This group of Canadian and international artists working in various media, are connected by their highly-personal explorations of the estranged body. Emerging artists, self-taught artists, artists struggling with mental health issues, participate alongside formally trained artists to foster the dialectic the body as a site for both contemplation and stigmata.
The human figure is predominantly featured, presented in ways that serve to obstruct our formulation of an eroticized frame for viewing. Rather, the lush beauty of a brushstroke, the forensic detail of a camera’s surveillance, the evocative trace of the pencil lead to human landscapes which are haunting and disturbing revelations.
The images create provocative ambiguous vignettes – ephemeral fragments of time sliced from a presumably largely coherent narrative. As beholders, we are then required to participate by “completing the story”: we imbue to the performing body of the image our own subjective life experiences, creating a “mash up” of meanings conflating the artist’s diaristic expression, and subsequently our own.
The physical body as a contested site for the workings of psychological trauma and veneration links to modern (post-Freudian) practices arguably best known through the harrowing figure studies and portraits by Francis Bacon, the extreme viscerality of photographs by Joel-Peter Witkin, and the confrontational self-lacerating performances by conceptual artists Vito Acconci and Marina Abramovi
As an intangible metaphor and a tangible presentation of images, INFIDELS represents an exploration of the transgressive body through complex meetings of the physical and the psychical, the real and the imaginary, the artist and the beholder”. – written for Guy Berube, director, La Petite Mort Gallery
LA TRAMPA GRÁFICA CONTEMPORÁNEA
Since its appearance in 2009 , LA TRAMPA GRÁFICA CONTEMPORÁNEA, the initiative of Ernesto Alva (Mexico City , 1982) and César Antonio López ( Xochistlahuaca, Guerrero, 1979 ) has served as a space for experimentation, development and exploration of graphics and other formats of the current visual language. Besides functioning as an independent meeting place, dissemination and work of contemporary artists. Since 2011 is directed by Ernesto Alva and is located in the building of the College of The Vizcaínas, in the Historic Centre of Mexico City .
http://latrampatallerdegrafica.blogspot.ca / https://www.facebook.com/LaTrampaGraficaContemporanea / https://twitter.com/LaTrampaGrafica
La Petite Mort Gallery
La Petite Mort Gallery is an unconventional contemporary art and design gallery space located in Ottawa, Canada that produces a wide range of collaborative exhibitions and programs. Operating both locally and internationally, La Petite Mort Gallery draws its energy and ideas from a wide range of contributors across divergent cultural scenes. The gallery’s vision is maintained through an approach that is instinctive, impassioned, eclectic, inclusive, spontaneous, humorous, and deeply human.
La Petite Mort Gallery’s primary basis in selecting artists is individuality and originality within their chosen criteria. The gallery takes pride in its ability to welcome and support artists whose works range in perspective, content, medium, and process. Although their individual practices vary, the artists relate in that they all possess the drive to challenge the material and conceptual limits of their work. It is through this global network of artistic talent combined with bold curatorial visions that La Petite Mort Gallery works against a traditional boundary of what is and can be shown in a gallery space.
La Petite Mort Gallery holds a strong international focus, continually working to collaborate and bridge dialogue across and between different global spaces. Given that the art world now operates on a global scale, the gallery sees geographical ‘distance’ as an opportunity to connect across particular contemporary art scenes, and further, as means to develop new ways of representing artists and supporting their careers.
Recently, La Petite Mort Gallery has extended its international reach with various exhibitions, workshops and programs held in cities that include New York City, Amsterdam, Santiago, Buenos Aires, and presently, Mexico City. La Petite Mort Gallery is pleased to continue this collaboration with La Trampa Gráfica Contemporánea, and looks toward the cross-cultural dialogues the exchange will produce.
ARTISTS: