Chile Contemporary Art is driven by the desire to promote the projection of the visual arts, generate a national and international showcase for local artists, in addition to positioning Chilean art in the world. The fair has started on the 27th of May and will be on view until the 27th of June.
GACHI PRIETO
Julia Masvernat’s exquisite sense of colour unifies her diverse output, her works are largely abstract, replete with vibrant colours and patterns that she composes intuitively or invites viewers to arrange themselves.
Silvana Lacarra is a self-taught artist who painted unhappily and worked with video, metal, and glass, until she finally found Formica, a form of laminated plastic, which she calls “a fantastic material, firm and whimsical as myself.” Lacarra further explains that she’s drawn to the material’s physical properties—its thickness, weight, lack of flexibility and colour. She uses it to create abstract sculptures that sometimes resemble household furniture, altered to be just beyond usable.
GALERÍA VERMELHO
Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain (Detanico Lain) have been developing a series of writing systems since the early 2000s, which sought to give form to words. In this selection, an overview of some of those systems are present, as well as glimpse on the usual gaze that the pair has towards the celestial bodies. The works presented at Open Ch.ACO are from Detanico and Lain’s last decade of production and can offer a view on their continuous work around their research themes that also include literature and art history, among others.
VIGIL GONZALES
Chunniqwasi is a series made by Peruvian artist and activist Natalia Iguiñiz. The series reflects upon the Internal Conflict in Peru where Natalia portrays rural homes in the districts of Huamanga, Huanta and Vilcashuamán that were especially hit by the deadliest war in Peruvian History since the European colonisation. These images are not just the archive of the traces of the violence of the war which tore the country apart, unleashed in a devastating physical-geographical territory, which is the Ayacucho region in the Andes of South Central Peru.
Sebastián Montalvo Gray’s presents his Corona Solar series. Located on the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere, the Corona is the hottest part of the solar system. Although it is still a mystery of how hot it can really get, Corona’s high temperatures can generate particles that escape the Sun’s gravity. The artist explains that as we are slowly approaching the post-COVID-19 era, it is becoming clear that new systems and structures are needed.
TARQUINIA
Oscar Barra’s work resonates between the figurative and the fantastic, creating new allegorical realities using elements such as toys, stairs, wheels, cars with artifacts and machines. His work reflects imagination and in his words, “Having imagination is not inconsequential. Imagination is decisive for any manifestation of our life“.
Andrés Vio first ventured into painting, later on he became interested in conceptual proposals linked to the subject of pictography, the communicative power of language and the relationship of the pictorial gesture with writing. He incorporates printed texts in his works as well as circular and spiral geometric designs.
REVOLVER GALERÍA
Equally in tune with nature and his vivid imagination, Matias Duville bases his experimental practice around drawing. His depictions of the landscape are swirling and semi-abstract, full of tortured and scrawled lines. His works are based as much on the subjective experience of nature and imagined views of far-off lands as they are on the real world.
Recognised for his suggestive use of fluorescent lights, Iván Navarro makes works that are rich in both art-historical and social references. Though his use of light bulbs invites comparison to Minimalism, particularly the art of Dan Flavin, Navarro’s work is conceptually quite different. He uses industrial materials to represent recognisable subjects.
RUBBER STAMP ART PROJECT
This artwork is part of the series Circles that the artist created with acrylic. The original drawing is handmade then the artist incorporated a digital drawing into the latter, interested in the figure “circle” and what it represents. The result is transferred to canvas and finished with acrylic. According to Brinck, this is a visual metaphor for “dream conservation” within a space where dreams can’t be lost or forgotten. This is simply,” dream number 6″
This work is part of the Mental Narratives series. Laura Villarreal approaches, through elements from her childhood, a new relationship between her adult mind and her new self. The brain is re-wired, old beliefs are gone and she only get to keep the ones that serve her now. In this series, the artist seeks to create a poetic portrait of her mind as she draws with thread to rebuild these new mental connections.
Polígrafa Obra Gráfica
Celebrated for what he calls “disturbances in the artistic system,” Julio Le Parc is among the progenitors of the Op Art, or Kinetic Art movement. Le Parc posits a Utopian vision for art and society through his perceptually illusory paintings, sculptures and immersive installations.
Luis Tomasello is best known for his white-on-white abstract geometric constructions that rely on light to create form and image. Tomasello was keenly interested in cinetism, particularly the use of existing light to create the illusion of movement through shifting light and shadow.
PRIMA GALERÍA
Mind Trap series was inspired by the ease with which people can fall into a superficial routine, forgetting to look for inner equilibrium. Uhart believes that the moments in which we catch a glimpse of our true self occur when we are faced with our most deep, raw feelings. By creating fictional scenes, she shows the analogy that exists between humans caging animals and the losing of their own freedom and sense of self in their quest for economical and social status. This is where ambition traps us and we forget that this is not the most important, but merely a medium for what really is.
Tomás Munita is a documentary photographer with a main interest in social and environmental issues. This photograph is from the series Birmania.
NG ART GALLERY
Vincench’s take on conceptual art is guided by issues that are relevant to Cuban social life and by his religious affiliation and political vision. The artist uses elements that are characteristics of religious Afro-Cuban rituals and breaks them down with graphic simplicity. Cuban and Caribbean art is typically spontaneous, emotional, and colourful however, in the 1980s, the region’s politics changed radically, causing Cuban artists to reflect more on the cognitive rather than the aesthetic process of art making.
A provocative figure in the world of street art, Mr. Brainwash practices an irreverent brand of appropriation characterised by the use of copyrighted images from history, popular culture and art history. The artist subtly alters the picture or its context, mischievously undermining the tone of the source material. Brainwash, a pseudonym for Thierry Guetta, is known for producing massive spectacles to display his art.
NOTHING GALLERY
The fluidity and spontaneity of process which unleash the potentiality of the materials and the space around the materials are essential for the artistic philosophy and the technique of Stevens Vaughn. Vaughn says, “I was raised as a farmer, and farmers are not good negotiators – because you cannot negotiate with nature, as you cannot negotiate with love or with the virus.” When painting Vaughn does not negotiate with the paper or with the water as not to miss out on the true beauty when focusing too much on the negotiation. The artist asserts that a person needs to be somehow open in dialogue and somehow radical.
The above descriptions are sourced from the galleries’ press releases.