Emilio Rodríguez-Larraín, "Refugios de los Andes 1" ("Andean Refuges 1"), 1985, Mixed media on canvas, 141 x 130 cm, Museo de Arte de Lima, Lima, Peru
"This exhibition illustrates a long process based on sources that go back long before Europeans named an entire continent America: that of the reinterpretation, in modern and contemporary culture, of the forms and meanings of ancient civilizations and indigenous cultures,
from Alaska to Patagonia.
The exhibition begins in the 18th century, documenting scientific expeditions and archaeological discoveries, the formation of the first collections and historicist architecture. It continues dealing with that Americanist identity dimension that, at the beginning of the 20th century, reinterpreted pre-Columbian knowledge and languages in materials intended for school education and gave rise to schools of arts and crafts, transforming graphic design, literature, theatre, cinema, music and fashion. It also addresses the plastic proposals that, in the middle of the last century, recovered or invented “the ancestral,” when new “traveling artists” ventured to America and explored it, collected their findings and recorded them with drawings and photographs that permeated their own works.
The exhibition extends to the present day, revealing how the Amerindian paradigm throughout the world seems to show no signs of fatigue: it survives in the conscious use of geometry and color, in the critical or ironic quotation of the past, in performance, postmodern architectures with indigenous roots, intentional kitsch, the refinement of conceptual art, new artistic behaviors and the sophisticated renewal of ancient arts and crafts, now loaded with new political-social and aesthetic meanings."
-Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Translated by Google Translate
from Alaska to Patagonia.
The exhibition begins in the 18th century, documenting scientific expeditions and archaeological discoveries, the formation of the first collections and historicist architecture. It continues dealing with that Americanist identity dimension that, at the beginning of the 20th century, reinterpreted pre-Columbian knowledge and languages in materials intended for school education and gave rise to schools of arts and crafts, transforming graphic design, literature, theatre, cinema, music and fashion. It also addresses the plastic proposals that, in the middle of the last century, recovered or invented “the ancestral,” when new “traveling artists” ventured to America and explored it, collected their findings and recorded them with drawings and photographs that permeated their own works.
The exhibition extends to the present day, revealing how the Amerindian paradigm throughout the world seems to show no signs of fatigue: it survives in the conscious use of geometry and color, in the critical or ironic quotation of the past, in performance, postmodern architectures with indigenous roots, intentional kitsch, the refinement of conceptual art, new artistic behaviors and the sophisticated renewal of ancient arts and crafts, now loaded with new political-social and aesthetic meanings."
-Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Translated by Google Translate
October 12, 2023
