WrecK to Create: April 2010

Opening 13th of March, 2010

Ending 10th of April, 2010

Symphony of A Decadence

Sinfonía de una Decadencia

When time erodes the surface of a once splendid thing, a new situation takes hold of it, Decadence.

With this exhibit, seven individual artists and one collective study the concept of decadence as an inevitability, hence an inherent aspect of the “Absolute”.
The outlook is observed through three different perspectives, a type of three-sided mirror in which we contemplate ourselves as individuals chained to our material, emotional and spiritual context. The 14 works presented are the result of each artist’s creative process to represent different ways to work with “decadence”:

Observe and Create, Recreate, Renovate and Redefine. Destroy to Create.

To restore life and strength to the “abandoned”, this show avoids looking at decadence as a fall towards a permanent death that shuts off everything that could have been. With this purpose, the artist collective TRES surveyed the Colonia Roma neighborhood in Mexico City and found a space filled with urban society’s waste and understood as basic part of such a landscape. Within the same idea, they identified and catalogued all forgotten garbage between buildings of the Border Cultural Center. The objects found are exposed in a way that exposes the abusive and selfish relationship between user and object.

José Pisil shows us a different side to the same relationship, highlighting how dependent we are on certain objects, in this case those related to telecommunications.

The characteristic cycle within decadence is similar to that of life itself. By repeating non-functional schemes, we have damaged the cycle and crippled the human capacity for individuality. Our modern age has announced the loss of original ideological postures. But what comes next? We could also find ourselves in a borderline situation, precursor to a stage of regeneration and reconstruction. With this idea, Antonio Ibarra draws and portrays, like a family photo, the archetype of dysfunctional relationships; characters bound physically but isolated emotionally. Dea Arjona writes and rips into her writings, understanding the contemporary life-experience as tortured and agonizing. Following the same scheme, Fernando Pizarro erases the written parts of his collages and dismembers and tears up the individual, unavoidable act in an effort to redefine ones’ self.

In all different works of art there is a feeling of nostalgia, of melancholy and abandonment, a poetic imaginative which is contrary to the ephemeral.

Nature, the ultimate symbol of life and vitality, is used in some pieces as a showcase of death and apathy.

Fabián Peña uses the tiny wings of cockroaches, an insect often perceived as degrading and dirty, to create intricate and precious natural motifs.

\Máximo González uses the process of decay and putrefaction in paper to show us a Ché Guevara that is forgotten and surpassed, humiliated by the passing of time. Finally, Orlando Díaz uses wood in order to physically show the toll of a fight that is unsustainable and impossible, the fight for global equilibrium.

Every work shown can be understood as part of a narrative that has been marked by our own time and place. This creates a symphony in which we all play a part.