When one sees Ericailcane's work for the first time, the fables of the Frenchman LaFountain immediately come to mind, in which animals represent the virtues, flaws, and the entire complex universe that makes up the human being.
When one sees Ericailcane's work for the first time, the fables of the Frenchman LaFountain immediately come to mind, in which animals represent the virtues, flaws, and the entire complex universe that makes up the human being.
The exhibition Ericailcane is presenting at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Bogotá includes interventions on the museum's facade and interior, as well as an exceptional series of drawings and illustrations he has titled “No somos nada”. His reflection revolves around the ambitions for power, for having, for knowing, for dominating, for controlling, for humiliating… that lie hidden behind every human being and that surface according to the circumstances, needs, stimuli, and vicissitudes to which that person is subjected.
When one turns to fable, to metaphor, it becomes easier to speak profound truths, and in a certain way it can reach a wider audience without generating the rejection it would naturally receive if stated directly; this does not mean that the tremendous realities and inequalities of our society are hidden or minimized, but rather that, through visual language, it becomes possible to break through the barrier of caution and self-protection to read, with full clarity, the reality we want to hide.
Ericailcane manages to draw us into his fable-like world and makes us reflect, through charming insects, mammals, and birds, on everything we have at some point been involved in — that is, the conspiracy, sometimes tacit and sometimes explicit, that makes all of us complicit.
This exhibition is anything but neutral; on the contrary, it is a political and critical statement about the contemporary world in which each visitor will find an image that questions them and makes them think about their behavior, both individual and collective, ultimately to understand that “No somos nada”.
The exhibition will be at the MAC until January 2014. Learn more about Ericailcane at: http://www.ericailcane.org/