In thinking about the final coordination, the installation process, and the opening of this exhibition which runs from July 20 to 28, parallel to the commemorations of the Independence of Colombia and Peru, this project proposes to rethink the concepts of emancipation, dependence, and independence in the recent history of both countries.
In thinking about the final coordination, the installation process, and the opening of this exhibition which runs from July 20 to 28, parallel to the commemorations of the Independence of Colombia and Peru, this project proposes to rethink the concepts of emancipation, dependence, and independence in the recent history of both countries.
As an ongoing tension, these concepts have shaped the agendas of governance, exploitation, and violence (in different forms) in Colombia and Peru, even taking into account their major cultural and historical differences. The projects of the chosen artists make use of different registers (direct or slanted critique, subtlety, humor, irony, and distinct poetics) to reflect on the contexts and conditions of both 21st-century democratic republics, which still carry traits of the 16th-century viceroyalties that preceded them.
To be 21 and look 16 (even if these are centuries and not years) is, perhaps, an excessive insistence on being an eternal adolescent (and enjoying, in a way, the suffering), but to look fully at 21 (with or without a surviving 'socialism') is to consider, at least, the constitutional legality of a world that allows one to assert autonomy, as well as the full agreement of rights and duties: their inclined challenges and their unconditional surrenders.
Art is one way (not the only one, but among the best) to produce a joint reflection on related subjects or to find echoes from one side and the other through the artistic practices put into play on both sides of the shared border.
Emilio Tarazona
Curator