Image credits: Jake Lindemann
Cru Cru 
Mexico City 
2018

Co-curated with Kim Córdova

Artists: 
María Isabel Arango
Anthony Discenza
Jimmie Durham
Carmen Huízar
Lorena Mal
Armando Rosales
Rufino Tamayo
Marie Voignier
and Adolfo’s Mexiac pieces 


Press: 
La Tempestad 
El Universal 
Medium 


The exhibition was made possible thanks to the support of Cru Cru Casa Cervecera, Carbón 4 - printing studio, Urbano Media Lab, and the Olga and Rufino Tamayo Foundation (FORT).

Acknowledgements:

Mauricio Galguera, Luis Enrique de la Reguera, Anthony Discenza, Fernando Fernández de Córdova, José Kuri | kurimanzutto, Guillermo Núñez Jáuregui, SOMA, and Magnolia de la Garza.




Glaring Sights


Cuando el sol emana más energía de la que nuestros ojos pueden absorber. Glaring Sights springs from the anxiety provoked by the fundamentally contradictory nature of political ideology — in spite of its apparent all-encompassing reach, it camouflages itself and and pretends to disappear while it is actually consolidating and perpetuating itself. Through a number of artworks in different media that explore a variety of geographical and historical scenarios, the show tackles the function of political ideology as a crucial element for the social construction of reality, as well as for the creation of national identities.

Enacting a conscious effort to distance itself from conceiving politics as a matter of parties or of aligning oneself to a right or left-leaning agenda, the gathered exhibits address politics as a form of lived experience, and are instead interested in the performative strategies through which political systems are shaped and give birth to control devices — be them visual, narrative, sound-based, or others. Thus, the obsessive control of the past, the sacralization of cultural heritage, the role of art within the phenomena of identitarian constructions and education as the tool par excellence of political indoctrination, as well as the manipulation by the media, are some of the topics that haunt the artworks on display.

The central concern of the exhibition is particularly timely as it coincides with the biggest election process held in Mexico; its heated public debate generates an intense local resonance. However, the show emphasizes the global reach of political ideology and inquires on how it has been consolidated throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The artist line-up, spanning different coordinates and generations, highlights the lineage of a critical thought that has survived within the field of visual culture, regardless of the rise of authoritarian regimes and their intense proclivity to censorship. 

Hence, in this context, the metaphor about the energy emitted by the sun acquires a revitalized relevance: the light and radiation the star emanates always surpass the human capacity to absorb them. Even during its eclipse, when the sun seems to withdraw and languidly fade out, its beams increase their potency — to look at them directly can cause permanent blindness. When a political period or system is (apparently) coming to an end, its deeply rooted forms transcend it. How can we then face its ungraspable magnitude?