ART-PRESENTATION: Monochrome Undone
The monochrome is one of the most elusive and complex art forms of contemporary art. If we think about its origins or meaning, we find that the monochrome is many contradictory things, is neither a movement nor a category, it is not an “ism” or a thing. It may be painting, the material surface of the work itself, the denial of perspective or narrative. The monochrome may be a readymade, a found object, or an environment, anything in which a single color dominates.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: SPACE Collection Archive
The exhibition “Monochrome Undone” is about the contemporary monochrome in Latin America. The monochrome in Latin America today may be conceptual and/or political, or it may be an inquiry on the possibilities and limits of materiality. It deconstructs its European and North American modernist absolutist nature by simultaneously referring and acknowledging its relation, history and ideology while challenging and contradicting its essentialist totalitarian origin. The monochrome thus conceived may be rooted in daily life, specific experience (a most anti-modern idea) to localized material culture and urban space. The exhibition presents works from 36 artists and is organized into four different themes: “The Everyday Monochrome”, “The White Monochrome”, “The Elusive Monochrome” and “The Transparent Monochrome”. These themes have been conceived to create context and suggest interpretations that otherwise might be illegible. These may overlap at times, pointing to the multiplicity of content in many of the works. The unclassifiable and variable nature of the monochrome in Latin America today is borne of self-criticality and from unique Latin contexts, to exist within its own specificity and conceptual urgency. Artists: Ricardo Alcaide, Alejandra Barreda, Andrés Bedoya, Emilio Chapela, Eduardo Costa, Danilo Dueñas, Magdalena Fernández, Valentina Liernur, Marco Maggi, Manuel Mérida, Gabriel de la Mora, Miguel Angel Ríos, Lester Rodríguez, Eduardo Santiere, Emilia Azcárate, Marta Chilindrón, Bruno Dubner, Rubén Ortíz-Torres, Fidel Sclavo, Renata Tassinari, Georgina Bringas, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Thomas Glassford, José Luis Landet, Jorge de León, Bernardo Ortiz, Martin Pelenur, Teresa Pereda, Pablo Rasgado, Ricardo Rendón, Santiago Reyes Villaveces, Mariela Scafati, Gabriel Sierra, Jaime Tarazona, Adán Vallecillo, Horacio Zabala.
Info: Curator: Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, SPACE Collection, 17666 Fitch, Irvine, Duration: 24/10/15-1/4/16, Days & Hours: By Appointment Only, http://abstractioninaction.com
